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National Park ServiceU.S. Department of the Interior
Human Resources Career Field Competency Gap Analysis Study Report
June 2013
Report
Jo Robinson Training Manager,
Administration and
Business Practices,
Commercial Services and
Specialty Fields
National Park Service
Nancy Wilson Chief,
WASO HR Operations
Division
Workforce Management
National Park Service
Stephen A. Wolter
Executive Director
Christy McCormick
Project Team
Nona Capps
Project Team
Eppley Institute for Parks & Public Lands
Indiana University Research Park
501 N. Morton Street, Suite 101
Bloomington, IN 47404
812.855.3095
Acknowledgements
The following individuals contributed to the development of this document:
National Park Service
Angela Hargrove
Jo Robinson
Nancy Wilson
Eppley Institute for Parks and Public Lands
Jeff Bransford
Melanie Brezniak
Nona Capps
Austin Hochstetler
Christy McCormick
Katy Patrick
Steve Wolter
Table of Contents Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................... 1
Methodology ................................................................................................................................ 1
Survey Population and Response ............................................................................................... 3
Findings .......................................................................................................................................... 3
Stakeholder Survey ............................................................................................................... 3
Conclusions and Recommendations ........................................................................................ 5
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 6
Methodology ................................................................................................................................ 7
Survey Development ................................................................................................................. 11
Employee Survey ................................................................................................................. 11
Supervisor Survey ................................................................................................................. 12
Stakeholder Survey ............................................................................................................. 12
Survey Deployment ............................................................................................................. 12
Data Collection ................................................................................................................... 12
Research Methodology ............................................................................................................. 13
Analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 15
Response Rate ..................................................................................................................... 15
Quantitative Results .................................................................................................................... 16
Example IP Grid with Plotted Data ........................................................................................... 19
Attention to Detail ...................................................................................................................... 20
Client Engagement/Change Management .......................................................................... 21
Customer Service ....................................................................................................................... 23
Decision Making ......................................................................................................................... 24
Flexibility ....................................................................................................................................... 25
Influencing/Negotiating ............................................................................................................ 26
Integrity/Honesty ......................................................................................................................... 27
Interpersonal Skills ....................................................................................................................... 28
Oral Communication ................................................................................................................. 29
Organizational Awareness ........................................................................................................ 30
Problem Solving .......................................................................................................................... 31
Project Management ................................................................................................................ 32
Reading ....................................................................................................................................... 33
Reasoning ................................................................................................................................... 34
Self-Management ...................................................................................................................... 35
Stress Tolerance .......................................................................................................................... 36
Teamwork .................................................................................................................................... 37
Writing .......................................................................................................................................... 38
Classification ............................................................................................................................... 39
Compensation ............................................................................................................................ 40
Employee Benefits ...................................................................................................................... 41
Employee Development ........................................................................................................... 42
Employee Relations .................................................................................................................... 43
HR Information Systems .............................................................................................................. 44
Information Management/Systems ......................................................................................... 45
Labor Relations ........................................................................................................................... 46
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence ................................................................................. 47
Performance Management ..................................................................................................... 48
Planning and Evaluating ........................................................................................................... 49
Recruitment/Placement ............................................................................................................ 50
Technical Competence ............................................................................................................ 51
Workforce Planning .................................................................................................................... 52
Competency Breakdown by GS Level .................................................................................... 53
Competency Breakdown by Region....................................................................................... 70
Stakeholder Survey ..................................................................................................................... 87
Qualitative Results ............................................................................................................... 88
General Qualitative Responses ................................................................................................ 92
Supervisor Survey ................................................................................................................. 92
Employee Survey ................................................................................................................. 92
Stakeholder Survey ............................................................................................................. 92
Demographics ............................................................................................................................ 94
Conclusions ................................................................................................................................. 96
Observations ........................................................................................................................ 96
General Recommendations .............................................................................................. 97
Appendix A ................................................................................................................................. 98
Appendix B ................................................................................................................................ 100
Appendix C ............................................................................................................................... 102
Supervisor Survey - Qualitative Responses ............................................................................ 102
Employee Survey – Qualitative Responses ........................................................................... 104
Stakeholder Survey – Qualitative Responses ........................................................................ 113
Figures Figure 1: IP Grid ............................................................................................................................. 2 Figure 2: Perceived Reliability of Guidance Received by Stakeholders .............................. 4 Figure 3: Stakeholder Reasons for Not Seeking HR Guidance .............................................. 5 Figure 4: Example IP Grid with Intersection Point ................................................................... 14 Figure 5: Qualitative Responses to Stakeholder Survey ........................................................ 89 Figure 6: Qualitative Stakeholder Response ........................................................................... 91
Tables Table 1: Competency Definitions ............................................................................................... 7 Table 2: Mean Importance, Mean Preparation, and Gaps for Supervisor and Employee
Surveys .......................................................................................................................................... 17 Table 3: GS 5 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps .................................................... 54 Table 4: GS 7 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps .................................................... 56 Table 5: GS 9 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps .................................................... 58 Table 6: GS 11 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps.................................................. 60 Table 7: GS 12 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps.................................................. 62 Table 8: GS 13 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps.................................................. 64 Table 9: GS 14 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps.................................................. 66 Table 10: General Competency Employee Reported IP Gaps by GS Level ..................... 68 Table 11: Technical Competency Employee Reported IP Gaps by GS Level ................... 69 Table 12: Southeast Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps ........................... 71 Table 13: Northeast Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps ........................... 73 Table 14: Midwest Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps ............................. 75 Table 15: Intermountain Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps ................... 77 Table 16: Pacific West Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps ...................... 79 Table 17: Alaska Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps ................................ 81 Table 18: WASO Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps ................................. 83 Table 19: General Competency Employee Reported IP Gaps by Region ........................ 85 Table 20: Technical Competency Employee Reported IP Gaps by Region...................... 86 Table 21: Stakeholder Questions .............................................................................................. 87 Table 22: Survey Responses by Region .................................................................................... 94 Table 23: Length of Time in NPS ................................................................................................ 94 Table 24: Number of Employees at Eact GS Level Represented by Supervisor Surveys .. 95 Table 25: Length of NPS HR Employment ................................................................................ 95 Table 26: Top 10 Reported Competency Gaps (sorted by employees) ............................ 96
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
1
The goal of the National Park Service Human Resources Career Field Competency Gap
Analysis is to determine any gaps in general competencies and human resource
technical competencies for employees who work in the NPS Human Resources career
field. This study consisted of five stages: determination of the research methodology;
development of the survey instrument; collection of data; analysis of data; and
reporting of findings. This report documents the findings.
Methodology The research methodology employed in this study is based on modified Importance-
Performance (IP) Analysis. IP can best be described as an easily applied technique for
measuring attribute importance and performance and, in this case, competency
importance and performance. Data were collected from NPS employees, supervisors,
and a stakeholder group (NPS employees who work in career fields other than HR but
who use HR services) in order to assess the degree of competency and preparedness of
NPS Human Resources employees. The Importance-Performance analysis approach
was chosen because it provides a simple and convenient form of measurement and
because data are presented in an easily interpreted, two-dimensional grid that
suggests possible courses of action.
Importance-Performance comparison results are generally translated into a priority
action grid as shown in Figure 1 below. In this case, the vertical axis of the grid indicates
the perceived importance of the Human Resource competencies to the survey
respondent, while the horizontal axis of the grid indicates the employee survey
respondent perceived proficiency in the specified competency. Additionally,
stakeholder comments regarding each competency were documented and
incorporated below the priority action grid to supplement the quantitative data. The
grand mean values for each importance and preparation competency were
calculated, and then plotted on the IP grid. The grand mean was selected as the set
point for the intersection of the IP measure rather than the mathematic intersection
because it allowed for a more objective alignment and easily definable IP grid
quadrants. The use of the grand mean statistic allowed for a more comprehensive
method for determining competency gaps and identifying potential training areas. In
addition, competency gaps were delineated by respondent GS level and region. Once
plotted, these values were interpreted according to their location on the grid as
described below.
Formalized Knowledge Training Required – Respondents believe that
competencies located in this area are very important; however, they perceive
themselves as being not well prepared to complete competency-related tasks.
Training curriculum and resources should focus on items found in this quadrant.
On-the-Job Training Required – Respondents rank competencies located in this
area as high in importance and likewise feel well prepared to perform them. NPS
training should attempt to maintain current effort and performance through field
experiences and onsite training.
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
2
No Training Required – This area characterizes competencies that the
respondents believe are low in importance and for which they are also not very
well prepared. No action is suggested for competencies located in this quadrant
since both ratings are low.
Training Unwise – Respondents judged competencies located in this quadrant to
be less important to their overall duties, but high in perceived preparation.
Training resources committed to competencies in this quadrant should possibly
be reallocated to competencies located in the “Formal Knowledge Training
Required” quadrant.
Figure 1: IP Grid
A gap analysis was then conducted using the IP grids for both general and technical
competencies. Utilizing the various mean scores for each item from supervisors and
employees, numeric gaps can be calculated between:
Perceived HR competency and preparedness by employee including further
analysis by years in field, years worked in NPS, and region
HR employee and supervisor by HR competency, as well as perceived ability
of HR employees by stakeholders
1 3 2 4 5
3
2
1
4
Performance
Importance
Formal
Knowledge
Training
Required
On-the-Job
Training
Required
No Training
Required
Training Unwise
Intersection point of
importance-
performance scale
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
3
These gaps were calculated using the IP grid responses in each of the quadrants so
they can be compared and prioritized for consideration by NPS HR Leaders.
Survey Population and Response Three groups of employees were surveyed as part of this study: HR employees,
supervisors, and stakeholders. The groups were surveyed to determine the level of
employee proficiency in 14 technical competencies and 19 general competencies
defined by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Out of 301 distributed
employee surveys, 180 completed responses were received; 32 completed responses
were received out of 56 distributed supervisor surveys; and 180 completed responses
were received out of 459 distributed stakeholder surveys. The response rate for all three
surveys exceeded the recommended sample sizes for statistically valid results.
Findings 1) There was agreement between supervisors and employees on 16 of the 19
general competencies that continued on-the-job training was required.
Responses on the remaining competencies were closely related and fell into the
formal knowledge training required and on-the-job training required quadrants.
2) There was agreement between supervisors and employees on nine of the 14
technical competencies that formal knowledge training was required. Responses
on the remaining competencies were closely related and fell mostly into the
formal knowledge training required and on-the-job training required quadrants.
3) Employee responses were also analyzed separately to further define
competency gaps by GS levels and competency gaps by region. GS 5
employees have the overall highest general competency gaps among the
reported GS levels. GS 7 and GS 9 positions indicated having gaps as well. GS 14
positions only indicated a gap for the Project Management competency.
4) GS 5 employees also have the highest technical competency gaps among the
reported GS levels. GS 7 through GS 11 positions indicated having gaps as well.
GS 14 positions did not indicate any gaps for all technical competencies,
representing that their performance meets or exceeds the competency’s
importance.
5) The Southeast, Pacific West, and Alaska regions reported having the most overall
general competency gaps. The WASO region reported having the least general
competency gaps. There are more technical competency gaps by region than
there are general competency gaps. The Southeast, Pacific West, Alaska, and
Intermountain regions show the most technical competency gaps.
Stakeholder Survey
Stakeholders were surveyed as well, and both quantitative and qualitative data were
collected. Both data sets collected regarding employee performance in both general
and technical competencies support the data collected in the employee and
supervisor surveys for formal knowledge training and on-the-job training requirements.
Stakeholders were also asked if they had sought guidance from HR employees
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
4
regarding technical competency issues and, if so, how reliable and accurate they
perceived the guidance to be. If they had not sought guidance, they were asked to
respond with a reason why. The qualitative data are summarized below.
Findings
Two factors were measured by stakeholder response: 1) reliability of the HR staff in
giving guidance to stakeholders, and 2) if stakeholders had not sought guidance for a
competency area from HR staff, why they had not done so. Guidance sought
regarding Performance Management issues was judged to be the most accurate and
reliable, while guidance sought regarding Planning and Evaluating issues was judged to
be the most unreliable. Stakeholders indicated that they were most unsure about
guidance received regarding Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence issues.
Stakeholders also indicated that they received the most varied guidance regarding
Recruitment and Placement issues. Guidance received regarding Labor Relation issues
was judged to be most correct, but stakeholders received poor service.
Stakeholders’ perceptions of the reliability of guidance from HR staff in specific
competencies vary, as shown in Figure 2 below.
Figure 2: Perceived Reliability of Guidance Received by Stakeholders
Stakeholders indicated a wide variety of reasons why they had not sought guidance
from NPS HR staff. Figure 3 below shows the competencies on which stakeholders had
not sought guidance and reasons why they had not done so.
Reliable Guidance
Less Reliable Guidance
Legal,
Government, and
Jurisprudence;
Planning and
Evaluating
Performance
Management
and
Labor Relations
Varied Guidance
Recruitment/
Placement
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
5
Figure 3: Stakeholder Reasons for Not Seeking HR Guidance
Conclusions and Recommendations While the findings in this report for the HR Gap Analysis do not provide specific
recommendations, the intent is to provide the training manager and Human Resources
leadership with a summary of the competencies that require training or developmental
events to improve efficiency in the HR workforce. To that end, data from all three
surveys indicate that gaps in performance in general competency areas can almost all
be resolved through on-the-job training, and gaps in performance in technical
competency areas can be resolved through more formal knowledge training. It is
recommended that on-the-job training continues at the current level in cooperation
with supervisors, and formal knowledge training is provided as funds and appropriate
training are available.
No Need for Guidance
Labor Relations
Too Busy, No Opportunity, or Not a Priority
Classification
Did Not Know Who to Contact
Planning and Evaluating
Poor Service
Recruitment-Placement
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
6
A competency gap analysis determines the difference between actual job
performance and ability and needed performance and ability in competency areas
for a specific career field. The National Park Service (NPS) Human Resources (HR) career
field recently updated the competencies for the various levels of employees in the
career, and a gap analysis was needed.
Additionally, several years ago a segment of the NPS Human Resources career field
completed a needs assessment offered by the Office of Personnel Management
(OPM). This needs assessment is only offered every other year, and the deadline had
passed once Human Resources management decided they wanted to do a needs
assessment in 2012. This competency gap analysis approach was proposed in its stead.
This HR Competency Gap Analysis study consisted of five stages: 1) determination of
the research methodology; 2) development of the survey instrument; 3) collection of
data; 4) analysis of data; and 5) reporting of findings. The results from the surveys are
reported here and will be used by the NPS to prioritize and design training events to
meet the needs of HR professionals in the NPS.
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
7
There are 33 competencies, 19 general and 14 technical, defined by OPM that are
necessary for employees in the HR career field. General competencies apply to all
federal employees, and technical competencies apply specifically to the HR career
field. The definition for each competency is listed in Table 1 below. In order to
determine the level of employee proficiency in these competencies, surveys were
distributed. Three groups of employees were surveyed as part of this study: HR
employees, supervisors, and stakeholders.
Table 1: Competency Definitions
Competency Definition Competency Type
Attention to Detail Is thorough when performing work
and conscientious about attending to
detail
General
Creative Thinking Uses imagination to develop new
insights into situations and applies
innovative solutions to problems;
designs new methods where
established methods and procedures
are inapplicable or are unavailable
General
Client Engagement/
Change Management
Knowledge of impact of change on
people, processes, procedures,
leadership, and organizational culture;
knowledge of change management
principles, strategies, and techniques
required for effectively planning,
implementing, and evaluating
change in the organization
General
Customer Service Works with clients and customers (that
is, any individual who uses or receives
the services or products that their work
unit produces, including the general
public, those who work in the agency,
other agencies, or organizations
outside the government) to assess
their needs, provide information and
assistance, resolve their problems, or
satisfy their expectations; knows about
available products and services; and
commits to providing quality products
and services
General
Decision Making Makes sound, well-informed, and
objective decisions; perceives the
impact and implications of decisions;
commits to action, even in uncertain
situations, to accomplish
General
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
8
organizational goals; causes change
Flexibility Is open to change and new
information; adapts behavior or work
methods in response to new
information, changing conditions, or
unexpected obstacles; effectively
deals with ambiguity
General
Influencing/Negotiating Persuades others to accept
recommendations, cooperate, or
change their behavior; works with
others toward an agreement;
negotiates to find mutually
acceptable solutions
General
Integrity/Honesty Contributes to maintaining the
integrity of the organization; displays
high standards of ethical conduct,
and understands the impact of
violating these standards on an
organization, self, and others; is
trustworthy
General
Interpersonal Skills Shows understanding, friendliness,
courtesy, tact, empathy, concern,
and politeness to others; develops
and maintains effective relationships
with others; may include effectively
dealing with individuals who are
difficult, hostile, or distressed; relates
well to people with varied
backgrounds and different situations;
is sensitive to cultural diversity, race,
gender, disabilities, and other
individual differences
General
Oral Communication Expresses information (for example,
ideas and facts) to individuals or
groups effectively, taking into
account the audience and nature of
the information (for example,
technical, sensitive, controversial);
makes clear and convincing
presentations; listens to others, attends
to nonverbal cues, and responds
appropriately
General
Organizational
Awareness
Knows the organization’s mission and
functions and how its social, political,
and technological systems work, and
operates effectively within them; this
includes the programs, policies,
procedures, rules, and regulations of
the organization
General
Problem Solving Identifies problems; determines
accuracy and relevance of
information; uses sound judgment to
General
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
9
generate and evaluate alternatives
and to make recommendations
Project Management Knowledge of the principles, methods,
or tools for developing, scheduling,
coordinating, and managing projects
and resources, including monitoring
and inspecting costs, work, and
contractor performance
General
Reading Understands and interprets written
material, including technical material,
rules, regulations, instructions, reports,
charts, graphs, or tables; applies what
is learned from written material to
specific situations
General
Reasoning Identifies rules, principles, or
relationships that explain facts, data,
or other information; analyzes
information and makes correct
inferences or draws accurate
conclusions
General
Self-Management Sets well-defined and realistic
personal goals; displays a high level of
initiative, effort, and commitment
toward completing assignments in a
timely manner; works with minimal
supervision; is motivated to achieve;
demonstrates responsible behavior
General
Stress Tolerance Deals calmly and effectively with high-
stress situations (for example, tight
deadlines, hostile individuals,
emergency situations, dangerous
situations)
General
Teamwork Encourages and facilitates
cooperation, pride, trust, and group
identify; fosters commitment and
team spirit; works with others to
achieve goals
General
Writing Recognizes or uses correct English
grammar, punctuation, and spelling;
communicates information (for
example, facts, ideas, or messages) in
a succinct and organized manner;
produces written information that may
include technical material and that is
appropriate for the intended
audience
General
Classification Knowledge of classification concepts,
principles, and practices related to
structuring organizations and positions
and determining the appropriate pay
systems, occupational grouping, title,
and pay level of positions
Technical
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
10
Compensation Knowledge of compensation
concepts, principles, and practices,
including pay and leave
administration and compensation
flexibilities
Technical
Employee Benefits Knowledge of HR concepts, principles,
and practices related to retirement,
insurance, injury compensation, and
other employee benefits programs
Technical
Employee Development Knowledge of employee
development concepts, principles,
and practices related to planning,
evaluating, and administering training,
organizational development, and
career development initiatives
Technical
Employee Relations Knowledge of laws, rules, regulations,
case law, principles, and practices
related to employee conduct,
performance, and dispute resolution
Technical
HR Information Systems Knowledge of HR management
concepts, principles, and practices
related to identifying and analyzing
HR processes, translating functional
requirements into technical
requirements, and delivering and
maintaining HR information systems
Technical
Information
Management/
Systems
Identifies a need for and knows where
or how to gather information;
organizes and maintains information
or information management systems
Technical
Labor Relations Knowledge of laws, rules, regulations,
case law, principles, and practices
related to negotiating and
administering labor agreements
Technical
Legal, Government, and
Jurisprudence
Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court
procedures, precedents, legal
practices and documents,
government regulations, executive
orders, agency roles, government
organization and functions, and the
democratic political process
Technical
Performance
Management
Knowledge of performance
management concepts, principles,
and practices related to planning,
monitoring, rating, and rewarding
employee performance
Technical
Planning and Evaluating Organizes work, sets priorities, and
determines resource requirements;
determines short- or long-term goals
and strategies to achieve them;
coordinates with other organizations
or parts of the organization to
Technical
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
11
Survey Development The survey questions were developed by the Eppley Institute with input from the NPS
Chief of the WASO HR Operations Division, the NPS Chief of the Office of Human
Resources, and the Administration and Business Practices, Commercial Services, and
Specialty Fields Training Manager, as well as additional Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).
All employees, supervisors, and stakeholders invited to participate were determined by
the National Park Service.
Employee Survey
This survey was distributed to human resources employees, specifically those who
provide human resource services directly to the field and including employees who
generally work in the Servicing Human Resource Offices (SHRO) or Regional or
Washington Area Support Office (WASO) Human Resource equivalent offices. Those
employees whose collateral duties may include human resource job functions were not
included in the employee survey population.
The employee survey was a self-reporting opportunity for employees to rate themselves
in specific competencies using the statements listed below.
I can apply this competency in the simplest situations.
I can apply this competency in somewhat difficult situations.
I can apply this competency in difficult situations.
I can apply this competency in considerably difficult situations.
I can apply this competency in exceptionally difficult situations.
accomplish goals; monitors progress
and evaluates outcomes
Recruitment/Placement Knowledge of HR concepts, principles,
and practices related to identifying,
attracting, and selecting individuals
and placing them into positions to
address changing organizational
needs
Technical
Technical Competence Uses knowledge that is acquired
through formal training or extensive
on-the-job experience to perform
one’s job; works with, understands,
and evaluates technical information
related to the job; advises others on
technical issues
Technical
Workforce Planning Knowledge of HR concepts, principles,
and practices related to determining
workload projections and current and
future competency gaps to align
human resources with organizational
goals
Technical
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
12
Employees were also asked about the importance of each competency to their job
performance, attendance at training and importance of training for each
competency, and frequency of performance using each competency.
Supervisor Survey
The supervisor survey was distributed to employees who supervise Human Resource
employees who provide HR services directly to the field. Supervisors were asked to rate
the level of proficiency their employees demonstrate in the technical competencies.
They were also asked about the importance of each competency in employee job
performance, importance of training, and frequency of performance using each
competency.
Stakeholder Survey
The stakeholder survey was distributed to NPS employees who are not employed in the
Human Resources series, but who may use HR services or require the assistance of an HR
employee. These stakeholders were asked to rate their experiences with HR employees
based on both general and technical competencies.
Survey Deployment
Invitations to participate in the survey were sent via email to NPS employees by the
Eppley Institute Project Manager. An announcement was sent the week prior to the
survey deployment to each survey population by the NPS and featured a
memorandum from David Vela, Associate Director for Workforce Management, to
encourage participation. An article was also published on InsideNPS, which was
accessible to all NPS employees (a copy of this article is available in Appendix A).
Angela Hargrove, NPS Chief, Office of Human Resources, also alerted Human Resource
Council members to ensure that HR employees and stakeholders were aware of the
survey.
Email invitations asked employees to click on a link to access the survey. The specific
emails are included in Appendix B.
A two-week response period for data collection was monitored by the Eppley Institute.
A reminder email was sent by the Eppley Institute five days prior to the due date. An
additional reminder was sent the day before the survey closed, and a final reminder
was sent the day the survey closed. Data analysis was an iterative process with a review
and feedback loop initiated by the Eppley Institute and shared with the NPS. A draft
report with preliminary findings was completed for review and comment. This final
report was then presented to the NPS.
Data Collection
The surveys were published online using the Eppley Institute and Indiana University’s
online survey tool, Qualtrics. All data were collected automatically through the online
survey system. The Eppley Institute monitored, maintained, and backed up the data as
necessary to ensure confidentiality and security.
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
13
Research Methodology The research methodology employed in this study is based on modified Importance-
Performance (IP) Analysis. IP can best be described as an easily applied technique for
measuring attribute importance and performance1 and, in this case, competency
importance and performance. Organizations adapt the IP methodology to measure
and compare the importance of specific job competencies with the degree of
performance. This study collected data from NPS employees, supervisors, and a
stakeholder group in order to assess the degree of competency and performance of
NPS Human Resources employees. The Importance-Performance analysis approach
was chosen because it provides a simple and convenient form of measurement and
because data are presented in an easily interpreted, two-dimensional grid that
suggests possible courses of action. In addition, this data analysis methodology is
extremely practical, and data can be acted upon quickly.
Importance-Performance comparison results are generally translated into a priority
action grid as shown in Figure 4 below. In this case, the vertical axis of the grid indicates
the importance of the Human Resource competencies, while the horizontal axis of the
grid indicates employees’ and supervisors’ perceived performance in the specified
competency. Additionally, stakeholder comments regarding each competency are
documented and incorporated below the priority action grid to supplement the data
derived from employees and supervisors.
The grand mean values for each importance and preparation competency are
calculated, and then plotted on the IP grid. The grand mean was selected as the set
point for the intersection of the IP measure rather than the mathematical intersection,
because it allowed for a more objective alignment and easily definable IP grid
quadrants. The use of the grand mean set point also allowed for a more realistic
reflection of the prioirites reflective of the HR employees in the NPS. This approach
helped to better determine more valid competency gaps and identify potential
training areas. In addition, competency gaps were delineated by respondent GS level
and region. Once plotted, these values were interpreted according to their location on
the grid as described below.
Formalized Knowledge Training Required – Respondents believe that
competencies located in this area are very important; however, they perceive
themselves as being not well prepared to complete competency-related tasks.
Training curriculum and resources should focus on items found in this quadrant.
On-the-Job Training Required – Respondents rank competencies located in this
area as high in importance and likewise feel well prepared to perform them. NPS
training should attempt to maintain current effort and performance through field
experiences and onsite training.
No Training Required – This area characterizes competencies that the
respondents believe are low in importance and for which they are also not very
well prepared. No action is suggested for competencies located in this quadrant
since both ratings are low.
1 Martilla, J.A., and James, J.C., 1997. Importance-Performance Analysis. Journal of Marketing,
41(1), pp. 77-79.
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
14
Training Unwise – Respondents judged competencies located in this quadrant to
be less important to their overall duties, but high in perceived preparation.
Training resources committed to competencies in this quadrant should possibly
be reallocated to competencies located in the “Formal Knowledge Training
Required” quadrant.
Figure 4: Example IP Grid with Intersection Point
Also provided is an additional analysis using IP, a gap analysis. Utilizing the various mean
scores for each item from supervisors and employees, numeric gaps can be calculated
between:
Perceived HR competency and performance by employee including further
analysis by years in field, years worked in NPS, and region
HR employee and supervisor by HR competency, as well as perceived ability
of HR employees by stakeholders
These gaps are calculated using the IP grid responses in each of the quadrants so they
can be compared and prioritized for consideration by NPS HR Leaders.
1 3 2 4 5
3
2
1
4
Performance
Importance
Formal
Knowledge
Training
Required
On-the-Job
Training
Required
No Training
Required
Training Unwise
Intersection point of
importance-
performance scale
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
15
This section displays the results for each of the 33 competencies. The first 19 are general
competencies. The remaining 14 are technical competencies.
Response Rate
The survey was disseminated to 301 NPS employees, 56 supervisors, and 459
stakeholders. In order to produce statistically valid results, the following responses were
required.
Employee Survey
For a population of 301, approximately 169 respondents is the recommended sample
size. There were 231 actual responses received, for a response rate of 76.7%.
Supervisor Survey
For a population of 57, approximately 48 respondents is the recommended sample size.
There were 37 responses received, for a response rate of 64.9%.
Stakeholder Survey
For a population of 460, approximately 210 respondents is the recommended sample
size. There were 240 responses received, for a response rate of 52.2%.
In terms of confidence level and confidence interval (or margin of error), it is assumed
that responses for both employees and stakeholders are within 4–5% of the true
population. The supervisor responses were a little lower than expected, but can still be
used. Here is some more information at a 95% confidence level:
Employee: Confidence interval = 3.1%
Supervisor: Confidence interval = 9.6%
Stakeholder: Confidence interval = 4.4%
The above confidence levels translate into the following:
Employee
It can be stated with 95% confidence that the survey answers are within 3.1% of the
actual population mean. That is, the data presented below for each competency are
generally +/- 3.1% accurate to how the entire employee population would feel about
the competency.
Supervisor
It can be stated with 95% confidence that the survey answers are within 9.6% of the
actual population mean. That is, the data presented below for each competency are
generally +/- 9.6% accurate to how the entire supervisor population would feel about
the competency.
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
16
Reviewing results for the Supervisor survey reveals that the responses have a close
agreement with a very low standard deviation for each question. An additional 11
responses will generally not change the overall analysis of the responses received, even
though there is a larger margin of error. If the Supervisor survey results had had a large
disagreement in responses, then the project team would have needed to solicit more
responses; however, this does not appear to be the case here.
Stakeholder
It can be stated with 95% confidence that the survey answers are within 4.4% of the
actual population mean. That is, the data presented below for each competency are
generally +/- 4.4% accurate to how the entire stakeholder population would feel about
the competency.
Quantitative Results Data analysis for this training needs assessment was initiated by calculating the mean
importance and performance responses for each competency. In addition to
calculating the estimated means for importance and performance, the employee and
supervisor data were also analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
(SPSS) to determine the upper and lower bounds utilizing the mean standard error for
the importance and preparation aspects of each competency. Calculating the
standard error for each competency’s importance and performance scores allows the
data to be visually represented by a rectangle or square. The standard error represents
the bounds in which the data represent the true relationship to the total population. By
utilizing this statistic, we are able to see how much variance was in the survey data
while at the same time understanding where the limit of the true relationship to the total
population resides.
The upper and lower bounds of the standard error for importance and preparation for
each competency were then plotted on the IP Grids. The result was a box plotted on
the IP Grid within which the actual mean lies. Utilization of standard error to analyze the
data allows for a more accurate interpretation of the importance and preparation of
select competencies in the various IP quadrants. Once again, by having bounds and
representing the data in this way, it is easier to see the variance in survey responses
while at the same time understanding what the relationship is to the total population.
Utilizing the standard error creates a broader use of the data and facilitates decision
making that is based more firmly on the represented data.
The employees' and supervisors' estimated means for importance and preparation for
each competency were plotted on the same IP grid in order to observe trends in
competencies and to compare responses.
In the cases where there is a great deal of variance and the plotted response box is
very large, wide, or long, the reviewer can interpret that the ratings of importance and
preparation varied considerably between Employees and/or Supervisors. This variance
may be due to various factors such as experience, tenure in current position,
background, agency orientation, and other factors not measured by the survey.
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
17
The estimated means for importance and preparation for employees and supervisors
are represented in Table 2 below.
Table 2: Mean Importance, Mean Preparation, and Gaps for Supervisor and Employee
Surveys
General
Competencies Mean Importance Mean Preparation Gap
Employee Supervisor Employee Supervisor Employee Supervisor
Attention to
Detail 3.88 3.88 3.68 3.53 0.20 0.35
Creative
Thinking 3.21 3.18 3.54 3.15 -0.33 0.03
Client
Management/
Change
Management
3.49 3.41 2.82 2.85 0.67 0.56
Customer
Service 3.9 3.97 3.83 3.76 0.07 0.21
Decision
Making 3.53 3.68 3.44 3.24 0.09 0.44
Flexibility 3.58 3.53 3.81 3.21 -0.23 0.32
Influencing/
Negotiating 3.2 3.3 3.27 3 -0.07 0.3
Integrity/
Honesty 3.92 3.97 4.31 4.09 -0.39 -0.12
Interpersonal
Skills 3.8 3.85 3.71 3.82 0.09 0.03
Oral Communi-
cation 3.7 3.76 3.49 3.47 0.21 0.29
Organizational
Awareness 3.36 3.24 3.31 3.26 0.05 -0.02
Problem
Solving 3.59 3.53 3.38 3.5 0.21 0.03
Project
Management 3.01 2.53 2.82 2.29 0.19 0.24
Reading 3.65 3.71 3.73 3.82 -0.08 -0.11
Reasoning 3.6 3.56 3.42 3.56 0.18 0
Self-
Management 3.72 3.71 4.21 3.65 -0.49 0.06
Stress
Tolerance 3.62 3.47 3.9 3.38 -0.28 0.09
Teamwork 3.6 3.79 3.36 3.85 0.24 -0.06
Writing 3.44 3.35 3.48 3.42 -0.04 -0.07
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
18
Technical
Competencies Mean Importance Mean Preparation Gap
Employee Supervisor Employee Supervisor Employee Supervisor
Classification 2.75 2.74 2.49 2.53 0.26 0.21
Compensation 2.94 3.15 2.99 3.15 -0.05 0
Employee
Benefits
2.8 2.56 2.69 2.65 0.11 -0.09
Employee
Development
2.75 2.65 2.39 2.26 0.36 0.39
Employee
Relations
2.94 2.91 2.4 2.58 0.54 0.33
HR Information
Systems
3.22 3.24 2.68 2.68 0.54 0.56
Information
Management/
Systems
3.22 3.12 2.78 2.85 0.44 0.27
Labor Relations 2.56 2.32 1.91 1.91 0.65 0.41
Legal,
Government,
and
Jurisprudence
3.38 3.29 2.76 2.65 0.62 0.64
Performance
Management
2.94 3.06 2.8 2.97 0.14 0.09
Planning and
Evaluating
3.28 3.12 3.55 2.91 -0.27 0.21
Recruitment
and Placement
3.27 3.56 3.12 3.62 0.15 -0.06
Technical
Competence
3.69 3.85 3.45 3.62 0.24 0.23
Workforce
Planning
2.89 2.85 2.46 2.41 0.43 0.44
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
19
Example IP Grid with Plotted Data
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TA
NC
E
PREPARATION
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Example 1 -
This box represents "On-the-Job Training Required" for the example competency. This
means that the competency is viewed as highly important and employees are highly
prepared for this competency.
Example 2 -
This box represents a potential split between "On-the-Job Training Required" and "Formal
Knowledge Training Required." This means that the competency is viewed as highly
important; however, there is a discrepancy between how well prepared employees are for
this competency.
Example 3 -
This box represents "No Training is Required." This means that the competency is viewed as
neither highly important nor highly prepared for.
Formal Knowledge Training Required
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
20
Attention to Detail
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.88, and the mean for preparation
is 3.68.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.88, and the mean for preparation
is 3.53.
Stakeholder
The majority of stakeholders indicated that HR employees are able to perform in this
competency area, with 55% answering strongly agree or agree. 25% neither agreed nor
disagreed, and 19% disagreed or strongly disagreed that HR employees are able to
perform in this competency area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
21
Client Engagement/Change Management
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.49, and the mean for
preparation is 2.82.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.41, and the mean for
preparation is 2.85.
Stakeholder
27% of stakeholders either agreed or strongly agreed that HR employees could perform
in this competency area; 34% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 39% either disagreed or
strongly disagreed that HR employees could perform in this competency area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
22
Creative Thinking
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.21, and the mean for
preparation is 3.54.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the surpervisor survey is 3.18, and the mean for
preparation is 3.15.
Stakeholder
18% of stakeholders surveyed strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees can
perform this competency. 36% answered neither agree nor disagree. The majority of
stakeholders, 46%, indicated they disagreed or strongly disagreed that HR employees
could perform in this competency area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
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Customer Service
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.9, and the mean for preparation
is 3.83.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.97, and the mean for preparation
is 3.76.
Stakeholder
26% of stakeholders indicated that they either agreed or strongly agreed that HR
employees can perform in this competency area; 46% neither agreed nor disagreed; and
27% responded that they either disgreed or strongly disagreed that HR employees can
perform in this competency.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
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Decision Making
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.53, and the mean for preparation
is 3.44.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.68, and the mean for preparation
is 3.24.
Stakeholder
29% of stakeholders indicated that they either agreed or strongly agreed that HR
employees could perform in this competency area; 37% neither agreed nor disagreed;
and 25% either disagreed or strongly disagree that HR employees could perform in this
competency area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
25
Flexibility
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.58, and the mean for
preparation is 3.81.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.56, and the mean for preparation
is 3.21.
Stakeholder
23% of stakeholders indicated that they either agreed or strongly agreed that HR
employees could perform in this competency area; 40% neither agreed nor disagreed;
and 37% indicated they either disagreed or strongly disagreed that HR employees could
perform in this competency area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
26
Influencing/Negotiating
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.2, and the mean for preparation
is 3.27.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.3, and the mean for preparation is
3.
Stakeholder
33% of stakeholders indicated they either agreed or strongly agreed that HR employees
could perform in this competency area; 41% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 25%
either strongly disagreed or disagreed that HR employees could perform in this
competency area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
27
Integrity/Honesty
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.92, and the mean for
preparation is 4.31.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.97, and the mean for
preparation is 4.09.
Stakeholder
64% of stakeholders indicated they either agreed or strongly agreed that HR employees
could perform in this competency area; 27% neither agreed nor disagreed; and only 9%
indicated they either disagreed or strongly disagreed that HR employees could perform
in this competency area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
28
Interpersonal Skills
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.8, and the mean for preparation
is 3.71.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.85, and the mean for preparation
is 3.82.
Stakeholder
53% of stakeholders indicated they either agreed or strongly agreed that HR employees
could perform in this competency area; 31% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 16%
indicated they either strongly disagreed or disagreed that HR employees could perform in
this competency area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
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Oral Communication
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.7, and the mean for preparation
is 3.49.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.76, and the mean for preparation
is 3.47.
Stakeholder
34% of stakeholders indicated they either agreed or strongly agreed that HR employees
could perform in this competency area; 47% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 18%
indicated they either strongly disagreed or disagreed that HR employees could perform in
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
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Organizational Awareness
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean importance from the employee survey is 3.36, and the mean for preparation is
3.31.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.24, and the mean for preparation
is 3.26.
Stakeholder
37% of stakeholders indicated they either agreed or strongly agreed that HR employees
could perform in this competency area; 41% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 22%
indicated they either strongly disagreed or disagreed that HR employees could perform in
this competency area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
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Problem Solving
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.59, and the mean for
preparation is 3.38.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.53, and the mean for preparation
is 3.5.
Stakeholder
35% of stakeholders indicated they either agreed or strongly agreed that HR employees
could perform in this competency area; 39% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 25%
indicated they either strongly disagreed or disagreed that HR employees could perform
in this competency area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
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Project Management
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.01, and the mean for
preparation is 2.82.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 2.53, and the mean for preparation
is 2.29.
Stakeholder
27% of stakeholders indicated they agreed or strongly agreed that HR employees could
perform in this competency area; 54% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 20% indicated
that they strongly disagreed or disagreed that HR employees could perform in this
competency area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
33
Reading
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.65, and the mean for preparation
is 3.73.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.71, and the mean for preparation
is 3.82.
Stakeholder
42% of stakeholders indicated they agreed or strongly agreed that HR employees could
perform in this competency area; 47% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 10% indicated
they strongly disagreed or disagreed that HR employees could perform in this
competency area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
34
Reasoning
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.6, and the mean for preparation
is 3.42.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.56, and the mean for preparation
is 3.56.
Stakeholder
36% of stakeholders indicated they agreed or strongly agreed that HR employees can
perform in this competency area; 47% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 16% indicated
they strongly disagree or disagree.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
35
Self-Management
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.72, and the mean for
preparation is 4.21.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.71, and the mean for
preparation is 3.65.
Stakeholder
27% of stakeholders agreed or strongly agreed that HR employees can perform in this
competency area; 55% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 19% indicated they
disagreed or strongly disagreed that HR employees can perform in this competency
area.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
36
Stress Tolerance
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.62, and the mean for
preparation is 3.9.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.47, and the mean for
preparation is 3.38.
Stakeholder
38% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees can
perform this competency; 48% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 14% indicated they
disagreed or strongly disagreed that HR employees can perform this competency.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
37
Teamwork
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.6, and the mean for preparation
is 3.36.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.79, and the mean for preparation
is 3.85.
Stakeholder
28% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees can
perform this competency; 49% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 23% indicated they
disagreed or strongly disagreed that HR employees can perform this competency.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
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Writing
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.44, and the mean for preparation
is 3.48.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.35, and the mean for preparation
is 3.42.
Stakeholder
55% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agree or agree that HR employees can
perform this competency; 31% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 15% indicated they
disagreed or strongly disagreed that HR employees can perform this competency.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
39
Classification
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 2.75, and the mean for
preparation is 2.49.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 2.74, and the mean for preparation
is 2.53.
Stakeholder
65% of stakeholders strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees can perform in this
competency area; 26% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 9% disagreed or strongly
disagreed.
74% of stakeholders have sought guidance from HR employees on issues related to this
competency. 26% of stakeholders have had questions related to this competency, but
did not know whom to ask for answers.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
40
Compensation
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 2.94, and the mean for preparation
is 2.99. Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.15, and the mean for preparation
is 3.15.
Stakeholder
71% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees could
perform in this competency area; 23% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 5% disagreed or
strongly disagreed.
19% of stakeholders have sought guidance from HR employees on issues related to this
competency. 61% have had questions, but did not know whom to ask for answers.
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
41
Employee Benefits
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 2.8, and the mean for preparation
is 2.69.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 2.56, and the mean for preparation
is 2.65.
Stakeholder
63% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees can
perform in this competency area; 31% neither agreed nor disagreed; and only 7%
indicated they disagreed or strongly disagreed.
58% of stakeholders have sought guidance from HR employees on issues related to this
competency. 25% of stakeholders have had questions, but did not know whom to ask for
answers.
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
42
Employee Development
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 2.75, and the mean for preparation
is 2.39.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 2.65, and the mean for preparation
is 2.26.
Stakeholder
43% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees can
perform in this competency area; 43% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 14% disagreed
or strongly disagreed.
33% of stakeholders have sought guidance from HR employees on issues related to this
competency. 20% have had questions related to this competency, but did not know
whom to ask for answers.
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
43
Employee Relations
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training
Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 2.94, and the mean for preparation
is 2.4.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 2.91, and the mean for preparation
is 2.58.
Stakeholder
68% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees can
perform in this competency area; 28% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 4% disagreed or
strongly disagreed.
66% of stakeholders have sought guidance from HR employees on issues related to this
competency. 14% of stakeholders have had questions about issues related to this
competency, but did not know whom to ask for answers.
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
44
HR Information Systems
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.22, and the mean for
preparation from the supervisor survey is 2.68.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.24, and the mean for preparation
is 2.68.
Stakeholder
46% of stakeholders indicated they either strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees
can perform in this competency area; 46% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 7%
disagreed or strongly disagreed.
59% of stakeholders have sought guidance from HR employees on issues related to this
competency. 18% have had questions related to this competency, but did not know
whom to ask.
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
45
Information Management/Systems
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.22, and the mean for
preparation is 2.78.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.12, and the mean for
preparation is 2.85.
Stakeholder
54% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees could
perform in this competency area; 39% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 7% disagreed
or strongly disagreed.
49% of stakeholders have sought guidance from HR employees on issues related to this
competency. 9% have had questions, but did not know whom to ask for answers.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
2013 HR Competency Gap Analysis Report
46
Labor Relations
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 2.56, and the mean for
preparation is 1.91.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 2.32, and the mean for preparation
is 1.91.
Stakeholder
35% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees can
perform in this competency area; 63% neither agreed nor disagreed; and only 2%
disagreed. No one strongly disagreed.
19% of stakeholders have sought guidance on issues related to this competency. 9%
have had questions, but did not know whom to ask for answers.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
HR Competency Gap Analysis Report 2013
47
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.38, and the mean for preparation
is 2.76.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.29, and the mean for preparation
is 2.65.
Stakeholder
32% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees could
perform in this competency area; 59% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 9% disagreed or
strongly disagreed.
16% of stakeholders have sought guidance on issues related to this competency from HR
employees. 10% have had questions, but did not know whom to ask for answers.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
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48
Performance Management
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 2.94, and the mean for preparation
is 2.8.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.06, and the mean for preparation
is 2.97.
Stakeholder
65% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees can
perform in this competency area; 28% neither agreed nor disagreed; and only 7%
disagreed or strongly disagreed.
52% of stakeholders have sought guidance from HR employees on issues related to this
competency. 15% have had questions, but did not know whom to ask for answers.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
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Planning and Evaluating
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.28, and the mean for preparation
is 3.55.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.12, and the mean for preparation
is 2.91.
Stakeholder
17% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees could
perform in this competency area; 61% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 14% disagreed.
No one strongly disagreed.
9% of stakeholders have sought guidance from HR employees on issues related to this
competency. 10% have had questions, but did not know whom to ask for answers.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
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Recruitment/Placement
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.27, and the mean for preparation
is 3.12.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.56, and the mean for preparation
is 3.62.
Stakeholder
45% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees could
perform in this competency area; 35% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 20% disagreed
or strongly disagreed.
62% of stakeholders have sought guidance from HR employees on issues related to this
competency. 19% have had questions, but did not know whom to ask for answers.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
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Technical Competence
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 3.69, and the mean for preparation
is 3.45.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 3.85, and the mean for preparation
is 3.62.
Stakeholder
42% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees can
perform in this competency area; 51% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 7% disagreed or
strongly disagreed.
27% of stakeholders have sought guidance from HR employees on issues related to this
competency.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
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Workforce Planning
1
3
1 3 5
IMP
OR
TAN
CE
PERFORMANCE
No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required
Training Unwise
Employee
The mean for importance from the employee survey is 2.89, and the mean for preparation
is 2.46.
Supervisor
The mean for importance from the supervisor survey is 2.85, and the mean for preparation
is 2.41.
Stakeholder
20% of stakeholders indicated they strongly agreed or agreed that HR employees could
perform in this competency area; 56% neither agreed nor disagreed; and 25% disagreed
or strongly disagreed.
16% of stakeholders have sought guidance from HR employees on issues related to this
competency. 15% have had questions, but did not know whom to ask.
Formal Knowledge Training
Required
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Competency Breakdown by GS Level Employee responses were analyzed separately to further expose competency gaps by
GS levels. There were a total of seven GS levels reported by employees: GS 5, 7, 9, 11,
12, 13, and 14. Results indicate that there are decreasing degrees of overall
competency gaps as employees move from GS 5 positions to GS 14 positions.
The following tables represent the competency gaps for each GS level. A positive IP
gap indicates that the employees reported the competency as more important than
what their current level of performance is. A negative IP gap indicates that the
competency is reported as being less important than what their current level of
performance is. An IP gap of zero indicates that employees reported their level of
performance as commensurate with the competency’s importance. All tables are
organized in descending order starting with the highest reported IP gap. Additionally,
positive IP gaps are shaded and a line is drawn that separates the positive and
negative IP gaps.
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Table 3: GS 5 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 1.29 3.13 1.84
Technical Competence 1.62 3.31 1.69
Problem Solving 1.87 3.5 1.63
Customer Service 2.13 3.75 1.62
Compensation 1.33 2.94 1.61
Employee Relations 1.14 2.75 1.61
Employee Benefits 1.21 2.81 1.6
HR Information Systems 1.8 3.38 1.58
Client Engagement/Change Management 1.57 3.13 1.56
Recruitment and Placement 1.08 2.62 1.54
Classification 1.13 2.63 1.5
Workforce Planning 1.09 2.56 1.47
Information Management/Systems 1.93 3.31 1.38
Labor Relations 1.21 2.56 1.35
Interpersonal Skills 2.27 3.62 1.35
Oral Communication 2.13 3.44 1.31
Attention to Detail 2.53 3.81 1.28
Employee Development 1.29 2.5 1.21
Performance Management 1.64 2.81 1.17
Teamwork 2.2 3.31 1.11
Reasoning 2.33 3.38 1.05
Reading 2.47 3.5 1.03
Project Management 1.73 2.69 0.96
Organizational Awareness 2.4 3.31 0.91
Planning and Evaluating 2.47 3.25 0.78
Influencing/Negotiating 1.93 2.56 0.63
Writing 2.4 3 0.6
Decision Making 2.33 2.88 0.55
Integrity/Honesty 3.27 3.75 0.48
Creative Thinking 2.33 2.75 0.42
Flexibility 3.07 3.25 0.18
Self-Management 3.64 3.56 -0.08
Stress Tolerance 3.67 3.5 -0.17
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for GS 5 employees are:
1. Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence
2. Technical Competence
3. Problem Solving
4. Customer Service
5. Compensation
If the above GS 5 competencies were plotted on the IP grid, 29 competencies would
require formal knowledge training. Legal, government, and jurisprudence is shown to
require the most attention due to its large IP gap. GS 5 employees largely feel that their
performance is below the importance of the general and technical competencies
studied and that formal training is required to reconcile the difference.
GS 5 employees reported a higher performance level than importance level for self-
management and stress tolerance. Although both competencies reside in the “on-the-
job training required” quadrant, the lack of a competency gap for GS 5 employees
indicates a low priority for training in these areas.
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Table 4: GS 7 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 1.79 3.37 1.58
Recruitment and Placement 1.77 3.11 1.34
Employee Relations 1.5 2.79 1.29
Classification 1.46 2.68 1.22
Labor Relations 1.29 2.5 1.21
Technical Competence 2.54 3.71 1.17
Workforce Planning 1.56 2.68 1.12
Client Engagement/Change Management 2.18 3.29 1.11
Employee Benefits 1.86 2.96 1.1
Performance Management 1.86 2.96 1.1
Problem Solving 2.61 3.61 1
Reasoning 2.43 3.43 1
HR Information Systems 2.57 3.54 0.97
Employee Development 1.89 2.71 0.82
Information Management/Systems 2.68 3.5 0.82
Customer Service 3.18 3.96 0.78
Oral Communication 2.79 3.54 0.75
Teamwork 3.04 3.71 0.67
Reading 2.93 3.57 0.64
Decision Making 2.79 3.41 0.62
Attention to Detail 3.37 3.96 0.59
Compensation 2.43 3 0.57
Project Management 2.32 2.79 0.47
Organizational Awareness 2.89 3.33 0.44
Flexibility 3.32 3.68 0.36
Interpersonal Skills 3.43 3.75 0.32
Writing 3 3.32 0.32
Planning and Evaluating 2.79 3.04 0.25
Integrity/Honesty 3.86 3.96 0.1
Influencing/Negotiating 2.75 2.79 0.04
Self-Management 3.68 3.71 0.03
Stress Tolerance 3.61 3.61 0
Creative Thinking 3.11 3 -0.11
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for GS 7 employees are:
1. Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence
2. Recruitment and Placement
3. Employee Relations
4. Classification
5. Labor Relations
If the above GS 7 competencies were plotted on the IP grid, 24 competencies would
require formal knowledge training (five fewer than GS 5 positions). Legal, government,
and jurisprudence is shown again to require the most attention in the form of formal
knowledge training efforts. It should be noted that labor relations was split between two
quadrants (on the overall IP grid for supervisors and employees), with supervisors
believing that no training is required but employees reporting the need for formal
knowledge training. GS 7 positions support the overall employee-reported need for
labor relations formal knowledge training. The top five GS 7 competency gaps are all
technical competencies as opposed to general competencies.
GS 7 employees reported a higher performance level than (or one equal to)
importance level for stress tolerance and creative thinking. Although both
competencies reside in the “on-the-job training required” quadrant, the lack of a
competency gap for GS 7 employees indicates a low priority for training in these areas.
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Table 5: GS 9 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Teamwork 2.53 3.71 1.18
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 2.29 3.37 1.08
Information Management/Systems 2.47 3.5 1.03
Labor Relations 1.59 2.5 0.91
HR Information Systems 2.65 3.54 0.89
Client Engagement/Change Management 2.41 3.29 0.88
Workforce Planning 1.88 2.68 0.8
Employee Relations 2.06 2.79 0.73
Classification 2 2.68 0.68
Technical Competence 3.06 3.71 0.65
Employee Benefits 2.35 2.96 0.61
Performance Management 2.35 2.96 0.61
Attention to Detail 3.35 3.96 0.61
Reasoning 2.82 3.43 0.61
Employee Development 2.12 2.71 0.59
Problem Solving 3.06 3.61 0.55
Compensation 2.53 3 0.47
Reading 3.18 3.57 0.39
Customer Service 3.59 3.96 0.37
Recruitment and Placement 2.88 3.11 0.23
Interpersonal Skills 3.53 3.75 0.22
Organizational Awareness 3.12 3.33 0.21
Decision Making 3.24 3.41 0.17
Influencing/Negotiating 2.63 2.79 0.16
Oral Communication 3.41 3.54 0.13
Project Management 2.73 2.79 0.06
Flexibility 3.71 3.68 -0.03
Writing 3.41 3.32 -0.09
Integrity/Honesty 4.18 3.96 -0.22
Planning and Evaluating 3.38 3.04 -0.34
Self-Management 4.06 3.71 -0.35
Stress Tolerance 4 3.61 -0.39
Creative Thinking 3.47 3 -0.47
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for GS 9 employees are:
1. Teamwork
2. Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence
3. Information Management Systems
4. Labor Relations
5. HR Information Systems
If the above GS 9 competencies were plotted on the IP grid, 17 competencies would
require formal knowledge training (seven fewer than GS 7 positions). Teamwork is shown
to require the most attention in the form of formal knowledge training efforts. On the
overall IP grid (representing all employees and supervisors), teamwork was in the “on-
the-job training required” quadrant. Further exploration of the increased need for
formalized teamwork training for GS 9 positions is required.
GS 9 employees reported a higher performance level than (or one equal to)
importance level for seven competencies, an increase from two for GS 5 and GS 7
positions. This may be indicative of the trend for more individual capacity as an
employee gains higher positions.
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Table 6: GS 11 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Workforce Planning 2.29 2.88 0.59
Classification 2.19 2.76 0.57
Decision Making 3.1 3.59 0.49
Labor Relations 2.05 2.47 0.42
Client Engagement/Change Management 3 3.41 0.41
Employee Relations 2.48 2.88 0.4
Project Management 2.65 3 0.35
Employee Development 2.43 2.76 0.33
HR Information Systems 3 3.29 0.29
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 2.95 3.24 0.29
Attention to Detail 3.71 4 0.29
Performance Management 2.65 2.88 0.23
Recruitment and Placement 3.33 3.47 0.14
Customer Service 3.9 4 0.1
Technical Competence 3.67 3.76 0.09
Oral Communication 3.81 3.88 0.07
Problem Solving 3.43 3.47 0.04
Teamwork 3.4 3.41 0.01
Writing 3.37 3.35 -0.02
Stress Tolerance 3.71 3.65 -0.06
Information Management/Systems 3.38 3.29 -0.09
Influencing/Negotiating 3.29 3.12 -0.17
Interpersonal Skills 4 3.82 -0.18
Reasoning 3.81 3.59 -0.22
Organizational Awareness 3.48 3.24 -0.24
Reading 3.86 3.59 -0.27
Compensation 3.43 3.12 -0.31
Flexibility 4.05 3.59 -0.46
Creative Thinking 3.71 3.06 -0.65
Planning and Evaluating 3.9 3.24 -0.66
Employee Benefits 3.33 2.65 -0.68
Self-Management 4.48 3.71 -0.77
Integrity/Honesty 4.76 3.94 -0.82
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for GS 11 employees are:
1. Workforce Planning
2. Classification
3. Decision Making
4. Labor Relations
5. Client Engagement/Change Management
If the above GS 11 competencies were plotted on the IP grid, nine competencies
would require formal knowledge training (a rather substantial decrease from 17 for GS 9
positions). Workforce planning is shown to require the most attention in the form of
formal knowledge training efforts. Additionally, GS 11 positions are the first to have
workforce planning identified in the top five competency gaps. It should be noted,
however, that the largest IP gap reported for GS 11 positions is 0.59, which is exactly half
the gap of the highest reported GS 9 positions. Labor relations, although exhibiting a
top five competency gap, still falls into the “No Training Required” quadrant and thus
should not be a focus for training for this position level.
GS 11 employees reported a higher performance level than (or one equal to)
importance level for 15 competencies, an increase from GS 5, GS 7, and GS 9 positions.
This may be indicative of the trend for more individual capacity as an employee gains
higher positions.
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Table 7: GS 12 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Labor Relations 1.98 2.57 0.59
HR Information Systems 2.92 3.4 0.48
Information Management/Systems 2.9 3.38 0.48
Client Engagement/Change Management 3.12 3.52 0.4
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 3.19 3.52 0.33
Workforce Planning 2.67 3 0.33
Employee Relations 2.73 3 0.27
Teamwork 3.44 3.67 0.23
Employee Development 2.69 2.9 0.21
Oral Communication 3.67 3.81 0.14
Project Management 3.02 3.1 0.08
Attention to Detail 3.87 3.9 0.03
Reasoning 3.69 3.71 0.02
Interpersonal Skills 3.87 3.86 -0.01
Organizational Awareness 3.44 3.38 -0.06
Decision Making 3.69 3.62 -0.07
Writing 3.65 3.52 -0.13
Planning and Evaluating 3.63 3.43 -0.2
Problem Solving 3.84 3.62 -0.22
Classification 2.94 2.7 -0.24
Performance Management 3.1 2.86 -0.24
Technical Competence 3.96 3.67 -0.29
Customer Service 4.2 3.9 -0.3
Employee Benefits 3.15 2.81 -0.34
Influencing/Negotiating 3.63 3.29 -0.34
Flexibility 3.84 3.48 -0.36
Recruitment and Placement 3.82 3.43 -0.39
Reading 4.1 3.71 -0.39
Stress Tolerance 3.96 3.57 -0.39
Creative Thinking 3.71 3.29 -0.42
Integrity/Honesty 4.38 3.95 -0.43
Compensation 3.44 3 -0.44
Self-Management 4.27 3.81 -0.46
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for GS 12 employees are:
1. Labor Relations
2. HR Information Systems
3. Information Management Systems
4. Client Engagement/Change Management
5. Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence
If the above GS 12 competencies were plotted on the IP grid, six competencies would
require formal knowledge training (a decrease from nine for GS 11 positions). Out of the
top five competency gaps, two competencies (client engagement/change
management and legal, government, and jurisprudence) can be addressed through
on-the-job training.
GS 12 employees reported a higher performance level than (or one equal to)
importance level for over half of the competencies, an increase from GS 5, GS 7, GS 9,
and GS 11 positions. This may be indicative of the trend for more individual capacity as
an employee gains higher positions.
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Table 8: GS 13 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Information Management/Systems 2.67 3.17 0.5
Labor Relations 2.63 3.04 0.41
HR Information Systems 2.67 3.04 0.37
Employee Development 2.96 3.13 0.17
Client Engagement/Change Management 3.75 3.78 0.03
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 3.79 3.65 -0.14
Employee Relations 3.5 3.29 -0.21
Recruitment and Placement 4.04 3.67 -0.37
Employee Benefits 3.13 2.75 -0.38
Attention to Detail 4.29 3.88 -0.41
Oral Communication 4.29 3.88 -0.41
Workforce Planning 3.54 3.08 -0.46
Interpersonal Skills 4.29 3.83 -0.46
Influencing/Negotiating 4.25 3.78 -0.47
Stress Tolerance 4.25 3.75 -0.5
Technical Competence 4.29 3.78 -0.51
Project Management 3.87 3.33 -0.54
Writing 4.3 3.75 -0.55
Performance Management 3.88 3.29 -0.59
Teamwork 4.39 3.79 -0.6
Decision Making 4.5 3.88 -0.62
Problem Solving 4.46 3.83 -0.63
Flexibility 4.37 3.71 -0.66
Compensation 3.75 3.08 -0.67
Organizational Awareness 4.25 3.54 -0.71
Creative Thinking 4.42 3.67 -0.75
Integrity/Honesty 4.75 3.96 -0.79
Reading 4.62 3.79 -0.83
Reasoning 4.67 3.79 -0.88
Classification 3.83 2.92 -0.91
Planning and Evaluating 4.54 3.58 -0.96
Customer Service 4.87 3.83 -1.04
Self-Management 4.83 3.79 -1.04
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for GS 13 employees are:
1. Information Management Systems
2. Labor Relations
3. HR Information Systems
4. Employee Development
5. Client Engagement/Change Management
If the above GS 13 competencies were plotted on the IP grid, four competencies would
require formal knowledge training (a decrease from six for GS 12 positions). Information
management systems was reported as having the biggest IP gap. It should be noted
that the GS 13 position is the first to have the employee development competency
identified in its top five. Although employee development ranks fourth, GS 13
employees may benefit from formal knowledge training in this competency, as they
may have greater employee development responsibilities than do other GS levels.
GS 13 employees only reported a competency gap for five competencies. Moreover,
one of the five top competencies, client engagement/change management, only
requires on-the-job training as opposed to formal knowledge training.
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Table 9: GS 14 Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Project Management 3.57 3.71 0.14
Labor Relations 2.57 2.57 0
Client Engagement/Change Management 3.71 3.71 0
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 3.71 3.67 -0.04
Information Management/Systems 3.57 3.29 -0.28
Employee Benefits 2.86 2.57 -0.29
Employee Relations 3.43 3.14 -0.29
HR Information Systems 3 2.71 -0.29
Employee Development 3.14 2.71 -0.43
Workforce Planning 4 3.57 -0.43
Influencing/Negotiating 4 3.57 -0.43
Oral Communication 4.29 3.86 -0.43
Teamwork 4.43 4 -0.43
Writing 4.29 3.86 -0.43
Attention to Detail 4.43 3.86 -0.57
Decision Making 4.43 3.86 -0.57
Interpersonal Skills 4.43 3.86 -0.57
Self-Management 4.43 3.86 -0.57
Stress Tolerance 4.33 3.71 -0.62
Problem Solving 4.57 3.86 -0.71
Technical Competence 4.43 3.71 -0.72
Creative Thinking 4.43 3.71 -0.72
Classification 3.71 2.86 -0.85
Reasoning 4.71 3.86 -0.85
Customer Service 4.86 4 -0.86
Organizational Awareness 4.43 3.57 -0.86
Performance Management 4.57 3.57 -1
Planning and Evaluating 4.71 3.71 -1
Flexibility 4.86 3.86 -1
Integrity/Honesty 5 4 -1
Compensation 4.14 3 -1.14
Reading 4.86 3.71 -1.15
Recruitment and Placement 4.43 3.14 -1.29
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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GS 14 employees only reported a competency gap for one area – project
management. Project management was split between formal knowledge training and
no training required on the overall IP grid. But for GS 14 positions, the project
management competency gap lies in the “on-the-job training” quadrant. GS 14
employees exhibit the highest performance/importance ratio for all competencies
compared to all other GS levels.
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Table 10: General Competency Employee Reported IP Gaps by GS Level
General Competency GS 5 GS 7 GS 9 GS 11 GS 12 GS 13 GS 14
Attention to Detail 1.28 0.59 0.61 0.29 0.03 -0.41 -0.57
Creative Thinking 0.42 -0.11 -0.47 -0.65 -0.42 -0.75 -0.72
Client
Engagement/Change
Management 1.56 1.11 0.88 0.41 0.4 0.03 0
Customer Service 1.62 0.78 0.37 0.1 -0.3 -1.04 -0.86
Decision Making 0.55 0.62 0.17 0.49 -0.07 -0.62 -0.57
Flexibility 0.18 0.36 -0.03 -0.46 -0.36 -0.66 -1
Influencing/Negotiating 0.63 0.04 0.16 -0.17 -0.34 -0.47 -0.43
Integrity/Honesty 0.48 0.1 -0.22 -0.82 -0.43 -0.79 -1
Interpersonal Skills 1.35 0.32 0.22 -0.18 -0.01 -0.46 -0.57
Oral Communication 1.31 0.75 0.13 0.07 0.14 -0.41 -0.43
Organizational
Awareness 0.91 0.44 0.21 -0.24 -0.06 -0.71 -0.86
Problem Solving 1.63 1 0.55 0.04 -0.22 -0.63 -0.71
Project Management 0.96 0.47 0.06 0.35 0.08 -0.54 0.14
Reading 1.03 0.64 0.39 -0.27 -0.39 -0.83 -1.15
Reasoning 1.05 1 0.61 -0.22 0.02 -0.88 -0.85
Self-Management -0.08 0.03 -0.35 -0.77 -0.46 -1.04 -0.57
Stress Tolerance -0.17 0 -0.39 -0.06 -0.39 -0.5 -0.62
Teamwork 1.11 0.67 1.18 0.01 0.23 -0.6 -0.43
Writing 0.6 0.32 -0.09 -0.02 -0.13 -0.55 -0.43
## Biggest IP Gap by Competency
Importance Greater Than Performance
Performance Greater Than or Equal To Importance
According to Table 10 (see above), GS 5 employees have the overall highest general
competency IP gaps among the reported GS levels. GS 7 and GS 9 positions indicated
having overall positive IP gaps as well. GS 14 positions only indicated a positive IP gap
for the project management competency. It makes sense that, as GS levels increase,
more IP gaps are negative, as higher positions require a more robust set of knowledge,
skills, and abilities (KSAs).
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Table 11: Technical Competency Employee Reported IP Gaps by GS Level
Technical
Competency
GS 5 GS 7 GS 9 GS 11 GS 12 GS 13 GS 14
Classification 1.5 1.22 0.68 0.57 -0.24 -0.91 -0.85
Compensation 1.61 0.57 0.47 -0.31 -0.44 -0.67 -1.14
Employee Benefits 1.6 1.1 0.61 -0.68 -0.34 -0.38 -0.29
Employee
Development 1.21 0.82 0.59 0.33 0.21 0.17 -0.43
Employee Relations 1.61 1.29 0.73 0.4 0.27 -0.21 -0.29
HR Information
Systems 1.58 0.97 0.89 0.29 0.48 0.37 -0.29
Information
Management/Systems 1.38 0.82 1.03 -0.09 0.48 0.5 -0.28
Labor Relations 1.35 1.21 0.91 0.42 0.59 0.41 0
Legal, Government,
and Jurisprudence 1.84 1.58 1.08 0.29 0.33 -0.14 -0.04
Performance
Management 1.17 1.1 0.61 0.23 -0.24 -0.59 -1
Planning and
Evaluating 0.78 0.25 -0.34 -0.66 -0.2 -0.96 -1
Recruitment and
Placement 1.54 1.34 0.23 0.14 -0.39 -0.37 -1.29
Technical
Competence 1.69 1.17 0.65 0.09 -0.29 -0.51 -0.72
Workforce Planning 1.47 1.12 0.8 0.59 0.33 -0.46 -0.43
## Biggest IP Gap by Competency
Importance Greater Than Performance
Performance Greater Than or Equal To Importance
According to Table 11 (see above), GS 5 employees have the highest technical
competency IP gaps among the reported GS levels. GS 7 through GS 11 positions
indicated having overall positive IP gaps as well. GS 14 positions indicated a negative IP
gap for all technical competencies, representing that their performance meets or
exceeds the competency’s importance. It makes sense that, as GS levels increase,
more IP gaps are negative, as higher positions require a more robust set of knowledge,
skills, and abilities (KSAs). This table shows that there is a greater IP gap in technical
competencies than general competencies when analyzed by GS level.
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Competency Breakdown by Region Employee responses were analyzed separately to further expose competency gaps by
region. A total of seven regions were reported by employees: Southeast, Northeast,
Midwest, Intermountain, Pacific West, Alaska, and WASO. No employee responses were
recorded for the National Capital region. Results indicate varying degrees of overall
competency gaps depending on the region in which the employee works.
The following tables represent the competency gaps for each region. A positive IP gap
indicates that the employee reported the competency as more important than what
their current level of performance is. A negative IP gap indicates that the competency
is reported as being less important than what their current level of performance is. An IP
gap of zero indicates that employees reported their level of performance as
commensurate with the competency’s importance. All tables are organized in
descending order starting with the highest reported IP gap. Additionally, positive IP
gaps are shaded and a line is drawn that separates the positive and negative IP gaps.
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Table 12: Southeast Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Labor Relations 1.83 3.21 1.38
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 2.21 3.42 1.21
Employee Relations 2.16 3.21 1.05
Workforce Planning 2.21 3.26 1.05
HR Information Systems 2.47 3.47 1
Classification 2.26 3.16 0.9
Client Engagement/Change Management 2.63 3.53 0.9
Employee Benefits 2.47 3.26 0.79
Employee Development 2.42 3.16 0.74
Information Management/Systems 2.68 3.37 0.69
Interpersonal Skills 3.21 3.84 0.63
Project Management 2.63 3.26 0.63
Performance Management 2.67 3.26 0.59
Recruitment and Placement 3.16 3.74 0.58
Technical Competence 3.16 3.74 0.58
Teamwork 3.05 3.63 0.58
Oral Communication 3.11 3.68 0.57
Attention to Detail 3.33 3.89 0.56
Customer Service 3.42 3.95 0.53
Decision Making 3.11 3.58 0.47
Planning and Evaluating 3.11 3.53 0.42
Reasoning 3.16 3.58 0.42
Influencing/Negotiating 2.74 3.11 0.37
Reading 3.26 3.63 0.37
Compensation 3.11 3.32 0.21
Problem Solving 3.37 3.53 0.16
Stress Tolerance 3.58 3.74 0.16
Writing 3.26 3.42 0.16
Flexibility 3.5 3.63 0.13
Integrity/Honesty 3.84 3.95 0.11
Self-Management 3.63 3.74 0.11
Creative Thinking 3.16 3.26 0.1
Organizational Awareness 3.37 3.42 0.05
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for Southeast region employees are:
1. Labor Relations
2. Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence
3. Employee Relations
4. Workforce Planning
5. HR Information Systems
The top five identified competency gaps require formal knowledge training to reconcile
the gap. After examining the reported IP gaps on the IP grid, it was determined that the
Southeast region requires at least on-the-job training for all reported competencies.
Influencing/negotiating reported a lower IP gap; however, this competency resides in
the “formal knowledge training required” quadrant on the IP grid. Although the gap is
somewhat low compared to others, it still requires formal knowledge training to
reconcile the competency gap.
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Table 13: Northeast Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Client Engagement/Change Management 2.87 3.57 0.7
Employee Development 2.37 2.87 0.5
Information Management/Systems 2.71 3.17 0.46
Teamwork 3.26 3.67 0.41
Recruitment and Placement 2.95 3.35 0.4
Labor Relations 2.54 2.83 0.29
Workforce Planning 2.55 2.83 0.28
Classification 2.35 2.57 0.22
Technical Competence 3.54 3.75 0.21
Attention to Detail 3.58 3.75 0.17
Reasoning 3.58 3.75 0.17
Project Management 3 3.13 0.13
HR Information Systems 2.79 2.91 0.12
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 3.33 3.42 0.09
Stress Tolerance 3.54 3.63 0.09
Organizational Awareness 3.25 3.33 0.08
Writing 3.59 3.67 0.08
Customer Service 3.87 3.92 0.05
Decision Making 3.54 3.58 0.04
Interpersonal Skills 3.79 3.83 0.04
Oral Communication 3.79 3.83 0.04
Problem Solving 3.52 3.54 0.02
Employee Relations 3.17 3.17 0
Reading 3.87 3.75 -0.12
Flexibility 3.63 3.5 -0.13
Compensation 2.92 2.78 -0.14
Performance Management 3 2.83 -0.17
Creative Thinking 3.67 3.42 -0.25
Integrity/Honesty 4.25 3.96 -0.29
Influencing/Negotiating 3.61 3.29 -0.32
Employee Benefits 2.96 2.52 -0.44
Planning and Evaluating 3.88 3.29 -0.59
Self-Management 4.25 3.58 -0.67
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for Northeast region employees are:
1. Client Engagement/Change Management
2. Employee Development
3. Information Management/Systems
4. Teamwork
5. Recruitment and Placement
Four of the top five identified competency gaps require formal knowledge training to
reconcile the gap; teamwork requires on-the-job training. It should be noted that the
top five competency gaps are substantially lower than the Southeast’s top five
competency gaps. Additionally, the Northeast reported their performance to meet or
exceed importance for 11 competencies.
HR information systems reported a lower IP gap; however, this competency resides in
the “formal knowledge training required” quadrant on the IP grid. Although the gap is
somewhat low compared to others, it still requires formal knowledge training to
reconcile the competency gap.
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Table 14: Midwest Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Client Engagement/Change Management 2.1 3.3 1.2
HR Information Systems 2.4 3.2 0.8
Labor Relations 1.7 2.5 0.8
Workforce Planning 2.33 3 0.67
Information Management/Systems 2.8 3.4 0.6
Employee Benefits 2.4 2.9 0.5
Employee Relations 2.5 3 0.5
Recruitment and Placement 3.1 3.5 0.4
Customer Service 3.6 4 0.4
Classification 2.6 2.9 0.3
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 3.2 3.5 0.3
Interpersonal Skills 3.7 3.9 0.2
Organizational Awareness 3.3 3.5 0.2
Problem Solving 3.5 3.7 0.2
Reasoning 3.3 3.5 0.2
Attention to Detail 3.8 3.9 0.1
Teamwork 3.6 3.7 0.1
Oral Communication 3.8 3.8 0
Project Management 3 3 0
Reading 3.7 3.7 0
Compensation 3.2 3.1 -0.1
Performance Management 3 2.9 -0.1
Decision Making 3.7 3.6 -0.1
Influencing/Negotiating 3.1 3 -0.1
Planning and Evaluating 3.67 3.4 -0.27
Employee Development 2.6 2.3 -0.3
Technical Competence 3.8 3.5 -0.3
Writing 3.8 3.4 -0.4
Stress Tolerance 4.3 3.7 -0.6
Flexibility 4.4 3.7 -0.7
Self-Management 4.6 3.9 -0.7
Integrity/Honesty 4.8 4 -0.8
Creative Thinking 3.9 2.8 -1.1
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for Midwest region employees are:
1. Client Engagement/Change Management
2. HR Information Systems
3. Labor Relations
4. Workforce Planning
5. Information Management/Systems
All top five identified competency gaps require formal knowledge training to reconcile
the gap for the Midwest region. The Midwest region reported having their performance
meet or exceed importance for 16 competencies. It should be noted that the
classification competency is in the top 10 according to competency gap; however,
when placed in the IP grid, classification resides in the “no training required” quadrant.
There is almost an even split between formal knowledge training required and on-the-
job training required to reconcile the reported competency gaps for the Midwest
region.
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Table 15: Intermountain Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Employee Relations 2.55 3.07 0.52
Technical Competence 3.24 3.76 0.52
Classification 2.1 2.61 0.51
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 2.97 3.45 0.48
Workforce Planning 2.11 2.59 0.48
Employee Development 2.31 2.76 0.45
Labor Relations 1.76 2.17 0.41
Client Engagement/Change Management 2.97 3.38 0.41
HR Information Systems 2.83 3.21 0.38
Problem Solving 3.41 3.72 0.31
Recruitment and Placement 2.82 3.1 0.28
Project Management 2.79 3 0.21
Oral Communication 3.55 3.69 0.14
Information Management/Systems 3.04 3.17 0.13
Teamwork 3.28 3.41 0.13
Compensation 2.79 2.9 0.11
Performance Management 2.93 3.04 0.11
Attention to Detail 3.83 3.9 0.07
Reasoning 3.41 3.45 0.04
Employee Benefits 2.55 2.55 0
Organizational Awareness 3.31 3.24 -0.07
Decision Making 3.59 3.46 -0.13
Influencing/Negotiating 3.28 3.14 -0.14
Planning and Evaluating 3.45 3.24 -0.21
Interpersonal Skills 4.07 3.83 -0.24
Customer Service 4.14 3.86 -0.28
Reading 3.83 3.55 -0.28
Writing 3.55 3.14 -0.41
Flexibility 4.07 3.55 -0.52
Creative Thinking 3.69 3.07 -0.62
Integrity/Honesty 4.62 3.97 -0.65
Stress Tolerance 4.28 3.45 -0.83
Self-Management 4.45 3.55 -0.9
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for Intermountain region employees are:
1. Employee Relations
2. Technical Competence
3. Classification
4. Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence
5. Workforce Planning
Four of the top five identified competency gaps require formal knowledge training to
reconcile the gap for the Intermountain region; technical competence requires on-the-
job training. The Intermountain region reported having their performance meet or
exceed importance for 14 competencies. It should be noted that the labor relations
competency is in the top 10 according to competency gap; however, when placed in
the IP grid, labor relations resides in the “no training required” quadrant. The
Intermountain region also requires more formal knowledge training than on-the-job
training to reconcile its reported competency gaps.
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Table 16: Pacific West Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 2.05 3.05 1
Teamwork 2.9 3.81 0.91
Client Engagement/Change Management 2.68 3.57 0.89
Technical Competence 2.85 3.71 0.86
Information Management/Systems 2.29 3.1 0.81
Oral Communication 2.85 3.62 0.77
Attention to Detail 3.1 3.86 0.76
Customer Service 3.1 3.86 0.76
Labor Relations 1.85 2.52 0.67
HR Information Systems 2.55 3.19 0.64
Problem Solving 2.9 3.52 0.62
Employee Relations 2.2 2.81 0.61
Organizational Awareness 2.8 3.38 0.58
Decision Making 2.9 3.43 0.53
Classification 2.05 2.57 0.52
Workforce Planning 2.16 2.67 0.51
Interpersonal Skills 3.25 3.71 0.46
Reasoning 3 3.43 0.43
Employee Development 2.05 2.45 0.4
Writing 2.8 3.19 0.39
Reading 2.95 3.29 0.34
Performance Management 2.55 2.86 0.31
Recruitment and Placement 2.9 3.19 0.29
Project Management 2.42 2.71 0.29
Employee Benefits 2.35 2.62 0.27
Influencing/Negotiating 2.89 3.14 0.25
Compensation 2.8 3 0.2
Planning and Evaluating 3.16 3.29 0.13
Flexibility 3.6 3.71 0.11
Stress Tolerance 3.65 3.76 0.11
Creative Thinking 3.05 3.05 0
Integrity/Honesty 3.9 3.9 0
Self-Management 3.85 3.76 -0.09
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for Pacific West region employees are:
1. Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence
2. Teamwork
3. Client Engagement/Change Management
4. Technical Competence
5. Information Management/Systems
All five of the top five identified competency gaps require formal knowledge training to
reconcile the gap for the Pacific West region. There is a noticeable need for formal
knowledge training to reconcile the majority of reported competency gaps. The Pacific
West region did, however, report having their performance meet or exceed
importance for three competencies. It should be noted that the employee
development competency shows a rather big competency gap; however, when
placed in the IP grid, employee development resides in the “no training required”
quadrant.
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Table 17: Alaska Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
HR Information Systems 1.67 3.11 1.44
Client Engagement/Change Management 2.11 3.44 1.33
Workforce Planning 1.75 3 1.25
Attention to Detail 2.89 4 1.11
Interpersonal Skills 2.56 3.67 1.11
Employee Development 1.38 2.44 1.06
Decision Making 2.33 3.33 1
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 2.38 3.33 0.95
Employee Benefits 1.67 2.56 0.89
Employee Relations 1.5 2.33 0.83
Labor Relations 1.25 2 0.75
Oral Communication 2.89 3.56 0.67
Problem Solving 2.89 3.56 0.67
Flexibility 2.67 3.33 0.66
Performance Management 2 2.56 0.56
Customer Service 3.33 3.89 0.56
Information Management/Systems 2.67 3.22 0.55
Influencing/Negotiating 2.56 3.11 0.55
Reasoning 2.89 3.44 0.55
Teamwork 2.67 3.22 0.55
Project Management 2.33 2.78 0.45
Organizational Awareness 2.78 3.22 0.44
Writing 2.67 3.11 0.44
Classification 2.33 2.67 0.34
Creative Thinking 3 3.33 0.33
Compensation 2.78 3 0.22
Reading 3.22 3.44 0.22
Stress Tolerance 3 3.11 0.11
Recruitment and Placement 3.5 3.56 0.06
Technical Competence 3.38 3.44 0.06
Integrity/Honesty 3.89 3.89 0
Self-Management 3.44 3.44 0
Planning and Evaluating 3.22 3 -0.22
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for Alaska region employees are:
1. HR Information Systems
2. Client Engagement/Change Management
3. Workforce Planning
4. Attention to Detail
5. Interpersonal Skills
All of the top five identified competency gaps require formal knowledge training to
reconcile the gap for the Alaska region. The Alaska region is also the only region to
have attention to detail and interpersonal skills be represented in the top five.
Additionally, there is a substantially noticeable need for formal knowledge training to
reconcile the competency gap differences. The Alaska region did, however, report
having their performance meet or exceed importance for three competencies.
It should be noted that three competencies (employee development, employee
relations, and labor relations) have a big competency gap; however, when placed in
the IP grid, the three competencies reside in the “no training required” quadrant.
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Table 18: WASO Region Employee Reported IP Competency Gaps
Competency Performance Importance IP Gap
Labor Relations 1.81 2.6 0.79
Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence 2.77 3.47 0.7
Employee Relations 2.18 2.81 0.63
HR Information Systems 2.87 3.37 0.5
Client Engagement/Change Management 3 3.48 0.48
Information Management/Systems 2.9 3.29 0.39
Employee Development 2.52 2.8 0.28
Workforce Planning 2.78 2.98 0.2
Performance Management 2.82 2.94 0.12
Problem Solving 3.54 3.63 0.09
Oral Communication 3.63 3.69 0.06
Attention to Detail 3.94 3.98 0.04
Technical Competence 3.73 3.76 0.03
Project Management 3 3.02 0.02
Writing 3.67 3.69 0.02
Reasoning 3.73 3.73 0
Classification 2.85 2.83 -0.02
Employee Benefits 2.96 2.92 -0.04
Teamwork 3.67 3.62 -0.05
Decision Making 3.65 3.56 -0.09
Interpersonal Skills 3.94 3.79 -0.15
Customer Service 4.15 3.92 -0.23
Recruitment and Placement 3.4 3.13 -0.27
Organizational Awareness 3.67 3.38 -0.29
Reading 4.12 3.83 -0.29
Influencing/Negotiating 3.54 3.24 -0.3
Stress Tolerance 4.06 3.71 -0.35
Compensation 3.27 2.87 -0.4
Flexibility 3.98 3.56 -0.42
Creative Thinking 3.75 3.31 -0.44
Planning and Evaluating 3.77 3.25 -0.52
Integrity/Honesty 4.42 3.9 -0.52
Self-Management 4.39 3.85 -0.54
Formal Knowledge Training Required No Training Required
On-the-Job Training Required Performance Is Greater Than Importance
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The top five competency gaps for WASO region employees are:
1. Labor Relations
2. Legal, Government, and Jurisprudence
3. Employee Relations
4. HR Information Systems
5. Client Engagement/Change Management
All of the top five identified competency gaps require formal knowledge training to
reconcile the gap for the WASO region. Additionally, there is a substantially noticeable
need for formal knowledge training to reconcile the competency gap differences. The
WASO region did, however, report having their performance meet or exceed
importance for 18 competencies – the most for any region.
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Table 19: General Competency Employee Reported IP Gaps by Region
General Competency SE NE MW INTERMNTN. PW AK WASO
Attention to Detail 0.56 0.17 0.1 0.07 0.76 1.11 0.04
Creative Thinking 0.1 -0.25 -1.1 -0.62 0 0.33 -0.44
Client
Engagement/Change
Management 0.9 0.7 1.2 0.41 0.89 1.33 0.48
Customer Service 0.53 0.05 0.4 -0.28 0.76 0.56 -0.23
Decision Making 0.47 0.04 -0.1 -0.13 0.53 1 -0.09
Flexibility 0.13 -0.13 -0.7 -0.52 0.11 0.66 -0.42
Influencing/Negotiating 0.37 -0.32 -0.1 -0.14 0.25 0.55 -0.3
Integrity/Honesty 0.11 -0.29 -0.8 -0.65 0 0 -0.52
Interpersonal Skills 0.63 0.04 0.2 -0.24 0.46 1.11 -0.15
Oral Communication 0.57 0.04 0 0.14 0.77 0.67 0.06
Organizational
Awareness 0.05 0.08 0.2 -0.07 0.58 0.44 -0.29
Problem Solving 0.16 0.02 0.2 0.31 0.62 0.67 0.09
Project Management 0.63 0.13 0 0.21 0.29 0.45 0.02
Reading 0.37 -0.12 0 -0.28 0.34 0.22 -0.29
Reasoning 0.42 0.17 0.2 0.04 0.43 0.55 0
Self-Management 0.11 -0.67 -0.7 -0.9 -0.09 0 -0.54
Stress Tolerance 0.16 0.09 -0.6 -0.83 0.11 0.11 -0.35
Teamwork 0.58 0.41 0.1 0.13 0.91 0.55 -0.05
Writing 0.16 0.08 -0.4 -0.41 0.39 0.44 0.02
## Biggest IP Gap by Competency
Importance Greater Than Performance
Performance Greater Than or Equal To Importance
According to Table 19 (see above), the Southeast, Pacific West, and Alaska regions
reported having the most overall positive general competency gaps. The WASO region
reported having the most negative general competency IP gaps. This table shows that
required knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) do in fact vary by region.
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Table 20: Technical Competency Employee Reported IP Gaps by Region
Technical Competency SE NE MW INTERMNTN. PW AK WASO
Classification 0.9 0.22 0.3 0.51 0.52 0.34 -0.02
Compensation 0.21 -0.14 -0.1 0.11 0.2 0.22 -0.4
Employee Benefits 0.79 -0.44 0.5 0 0.27 0.89 -0.04
Employee Development 0.74 0.5 -0.3 0.45 0.4 1.06 0.28
Employee Relations 1.05 0 0.5 0.52 0.61 0.83 0.63
HR Information Systems 1 0.12 0.8 0.38 0.64 1.44 0.5
Labor Relations 1.38 0.29 0.8 0.41 0.67 0.75 0.79
Information
Management/Systems 0.69 0.46 0.6 0.13 0.81 0.55 0.39
Legal, Government, and
Jurisprudence 1.21 0.09 0.3 0.48 1 0.95 0.7
Performance
Management 0.59 -0.17 -0.1 0.11 0.31 0.56 0.12
Planning and Evaluating 0.42 -0.59 -0.27 -0.21 0.13 -0.22 -0.52
Recruitment and
Placement 0.58 0.4 0.4 0.28 0.29 0.06 -0.27
Technical Competence 0.58 0.21 -0.3 0.52 0.86 0.06 0.03
Workforce Planning 1.05 0.28 0.67 0.48 0.51 1.25 0.2
## Biggest IP Gap by Competency
Importance Greater Than Performance
Performance Greater Than or Equal To Importance
According to Table 20 (see above), there are more technical competency gaps by
region than there are general competency gaps. The Southeast, Pacific West, and
Alaska regions again show the most competency gaps; however, the Intermountain
region can now be categorized in the same group. This table shows that there is a
greater IP gap in technical competencies than general competencies when analyzed
by region.
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Stakeholder Survey
Additional questions were asked on the stakeholder survey to gauge how much
respondents knew about the structure of the Human Resources offices in the NPS. The
following table shows the results.
Table 21: Stakeholder Questions
Question Yes No
Do you know what a Servicing Human
Resources Office (SHRO) is?
203 22
Do you know what SHRO serves your
park/office?
177 43
Do you know who your SHRO lead is? 136 79
Do you know what the Human Resources
Operations Center (HROC) is and where it’s
located?
158 54
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Qualitative Results
Qualitative data were collected in addition to asking if stakeholders agreed that HR
employees could perform in technical competency areas. These data were analyzed
using a qualitative data analysis software program called NVivo 10. Stakeholders were
asked if they had sought guidance from HR employees regarding technical
competency issues and, if so, how reliable and accurate they perceived the guidance
to be. If they had not sought guidance, they were asked to respond with a reason why.
Responses to the reliability question were grouped into the following categories:
Yes
No
Varies
Unsure
Correct Info, Poor Service
“Yes” indicates that stakeholders felt the guidance they received was reliable and
accurate. “No” indicates that stakeholders did not perceive the guidance to be
reliable or accurate. “Varies” indicates that stakeholders sometimes received reliable
and accurate information and sometimes did not. “Unsure” indicates that stakeholders
were not sure how accurate or reliable the guidance they received was. Finally,
“Correct Info, Poor Service” includes responses in which stakeholders indicated that
they received accurate guidance, but their experience working with HR employees
was not positive, e.g., guidance was very late, employees were very rude, etc.
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Figure 5: Qualitative Responses to Stakeholder Survey
72% 67%
61% 60% 60% 58% 57% 56% 55% 53% 51% 50% 41%
37%
8% 10%
14% 15% 7% 13% 17% 18% 20% 26%
21% 22%
54% 63%
3% 2%
1% 9%
4%
8% 5% 4% 5%
16%
5% 2%
14% 15%
16%
10%
18%
21% 19% 20% 18%
5%
16% 26%
5% 3% 6% 8% 6% 11%
2% 2% 2% 7%
Yes No Unsure Varies Correct Info, Poor Service
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Responses to the question of why stakeholders had not sought guidance were also
grouped into categories. These categories include:
No Need
Too Busy, No Opportunity
Don’t Know Who to Talk To
Not a Priority
Poor Service
Responses in the “No Need” category include those where stakeholders indicated that
they hadn’t had questions or were able to find answers to their questions without
consulting an HR employee. Responses in the “Too Busy” category include those where
stakeholders indicated that they did not consult HR because they felt that HR was too
busy to answer their questions. Responses in the “No Opportunity” category include
those where stakeholders indicated that they had questions but had not yet had the
opportunity to seek guidance from HR employees. “Don’t Know Who to Talk To”
responses include those where the stakeholder was not sure whom in HR to contact for
guidance or was not aware that HR was responsible/available to provide guidance in
that competency area. Responses in the “Not a Priority” category include those where
stakeholders had questions but felt it was not currently a priority to seek out guidance
from HR employees. Finally, responses in the “Poor Service” category include those
where stakeholders were not seeking guidance because of poor service they had
previously received. This category also includes responses where stakeholders felt that
previously sought guidance was not accurate or reliable and therefore weren’t
currently seeking HR guidance, as well as responses where stakeholders didn’t feel that
HR employees had the expertise to answer their questions and therefore weren’t
currently seeking their guidance.
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Figure 6: Qualitative Stakeholder Response
99% 93% 92%
85% 83% 82% 80% 78% 76% 72%
64% 64% 57%
51%
2% 2% 8% 7% 7% 9%
9% 10%
8% 16%
26%
23%
15%
6% 4% 6% 9%
5% 8%
6% 13%
8%
14%
29%
2% 4% 1% 5% 3%
6%
1% 3%
1% 5% 4% 2% 2% 3% 2%
2% 3% 6%
6% 3% 3% 4% 2% 3% 1%
No Need Poor Service Don't know Who to Ask Too Busy No Opportunity Not a Priority
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General Qualitative Responses Respondents to all three surveys were given an open-ended question where they could
record their opinions about the survey, their experiences, their recommendations for this
study or further training, or just general information they wanted to share. A complete
list of the qualitative responses received is available in Appendix C. Note that all
responses have been edited to remove any identifying information.
Supervisor Survey
Several supervisors indicated in their qualitative responses that they found the survey
too broad to complete accurately, because they supervise multiple employees at
different levels of knowledge and experience.
Some supervisors also mentioned that cost is an issue when sending employees to
training. Almost all supervisors indicated that all employees could benefit from training.
It was suggested by several supervisors that establishing a mentor program would be
highly beneficial for new employees.
Employee Survey
Several employees also indicated that completing the survey was difficult due to
unclear wording and that they felt the survey didn’t address all gaps. Others felt that
the survey was not a true representation of training, because it did not ask where
training was received. Some employees indicated that they actually received training
outside of the NPS, but there was nowhere on the survey to enter that information.
Several employees indicated that current training is not effective and does not address
specific needs, but virtually all employees who entered qualitative responses indicated
that structured, formal training is needed. Employees also suggested implementing a
mentor program.
Stakeholder Survey
Many stakeholders indicated that they found the survey difficult to complete because
of its broadness. They felt that the survey did not allow them to differentiate between
HR employees who are knowledgeable and capable and those who are not. Many
stakeholders also indicated that their experiences differ based on which HR office they
are working with: SHRO, HROC, or WASO. Again, the survey did not allow them to
differentiate between offices. Some stakeholders also responded that it was difficult to
complete the survey, because they don’t interact with HR employees and therefore did
not know how to respond.
Negative qualitative responses indicate that the SHRO is viewed as less competent than
HROC, and that there is a disconnect between the SHROs and the parks. HR employees
in general are seen as rule-bound and bureaucratic, with no real understanding of the
needs of parks. HR employees are also perceived as inflating their own authority but
often not being knowledgeable about what they are talking about. Many stakeholders
indicated that hiring officials need better certs, because certs will often include people
with no applicable skills. Some stakeholders explained that they believe this happens
because the HR employee grading the applications does not have a real
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understanding of what the job requires. Stakeholders also indicated that everything
with HR, particularly advertising and hiring for new positions, takes far longer than it
should, to the detriment of the park. Stakeholders also believe that HR offices are
understaffed and overworked. Many negative responses indicated that HR employees
in general are not customer-service oriented and are rude and difficult to work with.
There were far fewer positive qualitative responses to the stakeholder survey. Positive
responses often referred to specific HR employees by name. Some stakeholders
indicated that their overall experiences have been negative, but that working with a
specific HR employee has been positive. Other positive responses indicated that HR
employees do follow-up and are easy to work with.
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Demographic data was collected from respondents to all surveys. That information is
presented here.
Table 22: Survey Responses by Region
Survey
Region
Number of
Invites
Number of
Responses
Employee
Survey
Southeast 32 19
National Capital 0 0
Northeast 41 24
Midwest 23 10
Intermountain 56 29
Pacific West 50 21
Alaska 11 9
Washington Support
Office (WASO)
88 52
Supervisor
Survey
Southeast 5 2
National Capital 0 0
Northeast 5 3
Midwest 4 2
Intermountain 14 7
Pacific West 8 3
Alaska 1 1
Washington Support
Office (WASO)
19 14
Stakeholder
Survey
Southeast 64 21
National Capital 48 22
Northeast 64 23
Midwest 56 24
Intermountain 62 25
Pacific West 63 24
Alaska 44 18
Washington Support
Office (WASO)
58 18
Table 23: Length of Time in NPS
Survey Time in NPS Number of Responses Percent
Employee Survey 0–5 years 75 44%
6–10 years 21 12%
11–15 years 26 15%
16 years or more 47 28%
Supervisor Survey 0–5 years 15 47%
6–10 years 3 9%
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11–15 years 3 9%
16 years or more 11 34%
Stakeholder Survey 0–5 years 24 14%
6–10 years 14 8%
11–15 years 26 15%
16 years or more 113 64%
Supervisors were asked to indicate the grade(s) of their HR employees. That information
is listed below.
Table 24: Number of Employees at Eact GS Level Represented by Supervisor Surveys
Pathways
Interns/Students
GS 4 GS 5 GS 6 GS 7 GS 9 GS 11 GS 12 GS 13 GS 14
2 4 24 10 88 40 30 58 22 4
The positions of HR employees represented by supervisors in this survey include Ethics
Program Managers, Workers Compensation Program Managers, HR Specialists, HR
Assistants, Supervisory HR Specialists, Supervisory HR Assistants, Employee Relations
Specialists, EEO Managers, Regional Employee Relations Program Managers, Regional
Staffing and Placement Program Managers, and SHRO Leads.
Employees were asked to indicate how long they had worked in Human Resources in
the NPS.
Table 25: Length of NPS HR Employment
Length of Time Number of Responses Percent
0–5 years 84 50%
6–10 years 25 15%
11–15 years 25 15%
16 years or more 34 20%
They were also asked to describe their position as a generalist (i.e., performing work in
three or more technical competency areas) or a specialist (i.e., performing work in two
competency areas). 51% indicated that their positions are generalists, and 49%
indicated that their positions are specialists.
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While the intent of this report is not to provide specific recommendations, this section
provides general recommendations based on the results of the three surveys.
The following table presents the top areas of training focus as expressed by IP gap.
Additionally, the method of training to reconcile the IP gap is presented in the right
column.
Table 26: Top 10 Reported Competency Gaps (sorted by employees)
Competency Type of
Competency
IP Gap Recommended Action
Emp. Sup.
Client
Management/Change
Management
General .67 .56 Formal Knowledge Training
Labor Relations Technical .65 .41 Formal Knowledge
Training*
Legal, Government, and
Jurisprudence
Technical .62 .64 Formal Knowledge Training
HR Information Systems Technical .54 .56 Formal Knowledge Training
Employee Relations Technical .54 .33 Formal Knowledge Training
Information
Management/Systems
Technical .44 .27 Formal Knowledge Training
Workforce Planning Technical .43 .44 Formal Knowledge Training
Employee Development Technical .36 .39 Formal Knowledge Training
Classification Technical .26 .21 Formal Knowledge Training
Teamwork General .24 -.06 On-the-Job Training
*The IP grid shows a split between the “Formal Knowledge Training Required” and “No
Training Required” quadrants. Employees indicated formal knowledge training whereas
supervisors indicated that no training is required.
As denoted by the above table, there is a more apparent need for formal knowledge
training regarding technical competencies. Teamwork and client
management/change management were the only general competencies
represented in the top 10. Additionally, only the teamwork competency resided in the
“On-the-Job Training Required” quadrant on the IP grid.
Observations
There were a few competencies that did not fall completely into a single IP grid
quadrant:
Compensation
Influencing/Negotiating
Labor Relations
Performance Management
Planning and Evaluating
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Project Management
There were observed discrepancies for the above competencies. In most cases,
supervisors and employees reported differing importance and performance levels. This
discrepancy can be resolved when examining the competency gaps by both GS level
and region. Addtionally, it may be prudent for training managers to utilize smaller
surveys or focus groups to determine the best method for addressing these
competency gaps.
General Recommendations
Highest-priority training should focus on GS 5, GS 7, GS 9, and GS 11 levels.
o Higher performance levels do not seem to need the same level of training
that the entry levels need.
Based on many qualitative responses from supervisors and employees,
developing a mentor program may help address competency gaps at the lower
levels.
Highest-priority training should focus on the Southeast, Pacific West, and Alaska
regions.
o These regions reported the most technical competency gaps. It is
therefore recommended that higher priority be given to training in
technical competencies.
Training managers should refer to the competency gaps as presented by both
GS level and region to help determine the highest-priority training needs.
The NPS should maintain the current level of on-the-job training through field
experiences.
Further analysis of the performance of employees in SHROs versus HROCs is
necessary.
o Stakeholders reported that SHRO employees need more training than
HROC employees.
More analysis is required to reconcile the discrepancy regarding the
performance of the creative thinking competency.
o Employees report performing much better than what supervisors reported.
Additionally, 46% of stakeholders indicated they disagreed or strongly
disagreed that HR employees could perform in this competency area.
Further analysis is required to examine the competency gap relationship
between GS 9 positions and below and GS 11 positions and above.
o GS 11 positions and above report substantially smaller competency gaps
than the preceding levels.
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Inside NPS article announcing survey, available via
http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=viewnpsnewsarticle&type=Announcements&i
d=13411
OFFICE OF HUMAN RESOURCES
Human Resources Skill Gap Analysis Underway
Six years ago, the National Park Service began a concerted effort to transform its
human resources programs and services. The Service’s 74 human resources offices have
now been consolidated to 23 Servicing Human Resources Offices (SHROs) and a
significant amount of work has been done – and continues – on process and procedure
enhancements, including streamlining and consistency in the way human resources
services are delivered.
In August 2011, the "Call to Action" was released. Under item 30, "Tools of the Trade," it
calls for “enhancing professional and organizational excellence” and directs the
Service to “provide employees the tools, training and development opportunities to
reach their full career potential…”
In support of the Human Resources Transformation and this "Call to Action" item, the
National Park Service HR community has identified the need to assess and identify gaps
in proficiency within its existing workforce and to strategically plan a structured training
and development program for the human resources staff of the future.
As a first step in this process, the National Park Service Office of Human Resources, in
partnership with the Eppley Institute for Parks and Public Lands at Indiana University and
the Office of Learning and Development, have developed three assessment survey
tools (stakeholders, human resource practitioners, and supervisors of human resources
practitioners) that will be issued electronically on February 18th. These surveys will be
sent to a group of 450 stakeholders and all human resources practitioners and their
supervisors.
Participation is integral to gaining a valid assessment and we ask that selectees join us
by completing the survey within the established timelines. All participants will be notified
directly via electronic mail from the Eppley Institute ([email protected]) of their
selection and how to participate. Please do not delete this email!
The results of this survey will be used to identify current skill gaps that will enable us to
strategically plan the use of funds to focus on areas where the greatest need exists. It
will also be used to develop a human resources bootcamp that will provide a
structured, professional employee development program for HR practitioners that will
enhance our abilities to better meet the needs of our customers throughout the
National Park Service.
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The results will also further enhance the human resources community’s ability to
become a strategic partner in meeting the needs of our other customers throughout
the National Park Service.
Questions regarding the survey may be directed to Nancy Wilson, Chief WASO Human
Resources Operations Division at 202-354-1963 or [email protected].
The past three years have been difficult for all those in the HR community and our
customers. There is still much work to be done to create a 21st Century HR organization.
We will be looking to you, our stakeholders, to evaluate ideas and suggestions and to
collaborate with us in building this organization.
Contact Information
Name: Nancy Wilson
Phone Number: 202-354-1963
Email: [email protected]
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The following text was used for the stakeholder survey:
Good morning,
On February 14, Associate Director for Workforce Management, David Vela, issued a
memorandum announcing a stakeholder survey that would be issued today, February
18, 2013. You have been randomly selected to participate. Your participation in this
survey is critical and will assist the National Park Service in assessing the current skill sets
of human resources practitioners that provide services to your organization. It will also
assist the Service in planning and realizing an HR Bootcamp employment development
program that will be designed to build entry through expert levels of human resources
skills within the human resources community. This will further enhance the NPS HR
community’s ability to provide the best possible services to you, their customers.
The survey will take you approximately 15–20 minutes to complete, and you can save
and return to the survey later if you are unable to complete it in one sitting. All of your
responses are confidential and anonymous. To access the survey, click this link:
https://iuhealth.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_5beVAgGFh8KIAWV. Please complete the
survey by midnight on March 4, 2013. If you have any technical issues with the survey,
please contact Eppley Institute Project Manager Nona Capps at [email protected]
or 812-855-0864.
Thank you so much for your time and participation.
The following text was used for the HR employee survey:
Good morning,
As a human resources practitioner within a National Park Service Servicing Human
Resources Office or other office primarily focused on human resources programs, you
have been chosen to participate in the Human Resources Gap Analysis survey for
practitioners. Your input is critical to helping the NPS HR community strategically plan
employee development offerings and to develop the HR Bootcamp. The HR Bootcamp
will provide a structured, professional employee development program for HR
practitioners from the entry to expert level of skills.
The survey will take you approximately 25–30 minutes to complete, and you can save
and return to the survey later if you are unable to complete it in one sitting. All of your
responses are confidential and anonymous. To access the survey, click this link:
https://iuhealth.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_eDrhHU5RzaXSTSB. Please complete the
survey by midnight on March 4, 2013. If you have any technical issues with the survey,
please contact Eppley Institute Project Manager Nona Capps at [email protected]
or 812-855-0864.
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Thank you so much for your time and participation.
The following text was used for the HR supervisor survey:
Good morning,
As a supervisor of a human resources practitioner within a National Park Service
Servicing Human Resources Office or other office primarily focused on human resources
programs, you have been chosen to participate in the Human Resources Gap Analysis
survey for supervisors. Your input regarding the performance of your employee(s) is
critical in helping the NPS HR community strategically plan employee development
offerings and to develop the HR Bootcamp. The HR Bootcamp will provide a structured,
professional employee development program for HR practitioners from entry level to
expert level of skills.
The survey will take you approximately 20–25 minutes to complete, and you can save
and return to the survey later if you are unable to complete it in one sitting. All of your
responses are confidential and anonymous. To access the survey, click this link:
https://iuhealth.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8ji1M4lB9Ue1261. Please complete the survey
by midnight on March 4, 2013. If you have any technical issues with the survey, please
contact Eppley Institute Project Manager Nona Capps at [email protected] or 812-
855-0864.
Thank you so much for your time and participation.
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Supervisor Survey - Qualitative Responses My staff is at full performance level and could train in many of the topics listed.
We do have a student who is about to complete her education and does have
a need for various levels of training both formal and on the job. The issue is cost
of training and time.
Would like to see a clear set of basic training requirements set up for HR staff at
the various levels. Most staff are generalists, and having staff in satellite offices
sometimes makes team building difficult. Having HR staff in locations where they
are by themselves often does not allow them to gain knowledge as easily as if
they were in a larger office. Training needs to reflect those situations as well.
Technology is used on an ad hoc basis to make connections, I think the HR
community could invest more in technology to use it to bring staff together and
to train. The level of technology a SHRO has is dependent on the budget/non HR
manager willingness to buy into the SHRO needs. Technology doesn't replace
actual classes and face to face but we need to be creative as budget keep
shrinking. Also, some attention should be given to the fact SHROs co-located in
parks, are still treated as park SPOs in many cases and asked to take on non
SHRO duties for the co-located park. HR staff really need to learn how to
balance those demands and workloads. I also see a lack of growth
opportunities for HR Assistants as the NPS does not have a good mentor program
to grow their skills. As an agency we need to find a way to grow our HR staff and
to keep them. I have seen other agencies with a formalized HR training program
that we need to think about in the future. Right now skills for our current staff is a
need but as many of those staff get close to retirement, hiring replacements or
getting HR assistants enough knowledge to replace them is a concern as well.
Centralization's downfall is that the skills that are centralized are lost in the field as
non HR managers who approve budgets and training costs don't understand
that field staff still need to be trained so the products they send to HROC are
quality. Many of my GS-12 specialists end up spending 50% of their time doing
assistant work, because the processing is still required of them. Time has not been
freed up by the centralization process to work on the other areas of HR. So we
can train, but if the person has no time to put that training into effect the training
become another manual to sit on the shelf gathering dust. While the boot camp
is great for the initial phase, I would like to see how the HR community is also
going to implement continued training. It would be nice to have refresher
training offered in various areas, not just taking a basic class again, but
acknowledging the participants have the basics but need to know the changes
and reminders on topics that may show a trend NPS wide that seem to have
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difficulties. Maybe instead of one boot camp you have two boot camps, one
that address more basic knowledge and one that address those with
intermediate knowledge. I know those who have been HR professionals for a
long time would feel insulted to have to go to a back to basics boot camp.
While their knowledge may not be where it should be, we have to respect our
employees and acknowledge they do know something about HR. Supervisors
show know who to nominate for each type of boot camp. As we streamline
process, I think an acknowledgement has to be made in many cases we are
working with less than optimal staff and how do we keep stress, workload, etc.
reasonable. Many specialist are so bogged down in keeping the day to day
operations going that planning/workforce management/etc. is something that
they put off unless it becomes an absolute necessity.
I supervise employees at various grade levels with various degrees of proficiency
levels. Some are in remote offices and it is difficult to monitor their daily activities
and to assist in the skills gap areas. Formal training would benefit all employees.
I support that every employee should have an IDP. I meet with my staff every first
Friday of the Pay Period and train on one or more of the Competencies in this
survey which I first learned of in these 201 competencies mentioned in the CHCO
Council memorandum dated 4/28/2006. From this memorandum, I created my
staff's IDP - This IDP is to be used in conjunction with the following: NPS HR
Advisory #55, your PD, and FY12 Performance Plan. Their growth is dependent
on their own initiative, formal, informal, and OJT methods.
We have staff that have had specialties and newer staff that have a lot to learn.
I'm not sure that a generic study like this will help my SHRO. In this I had to do a
lot of generalizing...like ER we have one some but others generally familiar who
don't touch it. It is really all over the board so I hope you can take this and make
it meet our need. I'm currently very discouraged but will remain hopeful for the
NPS.
It was very difficult to generalize my answers to this survey for all of my SHRO. As
a SHRO Lead, I have employees who range from Awareness to Expert on any
given competency. Some need a lot of work and some could teach a class in
many of these topics. I ended up mentally averaging my perception of my
employees' competency level as a group across all of my employees. Hope my
responses are helpful.
Having basic budget training would be beneficial when advising managers on
staffing options.
I must state that this is one of the more useless surveys I have ever done with
regard to skill evaluation. It is impossible to use a one word description to
evaluate multiple employees of different grade/skill levels.
My responses are based on an average skill level of my employees. Their actual
levels range from Basic to Expert.
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I have four employees: two Human Resources Specialists, two Human Resources
Assistants. My HR Specialists work with Staffing and Placement mainly, with
OWCP being the next most performed duty. Because of the HROC, my HR
Specialists perform consulting duties generally for Benefits, Employee Relations,
Employee Development, etc. Of my two HR Assistants, one has been in the
position less than a year, so experience levels are less. But, she is learning quickly
with online courses and on-the-job training. While my other HR Assistant has
been in the position for several years and has progressed in those technical
duties to the point that she is ready to begin training in Staffing and Placement.
This survey grouped everyone into one category or answer. I feel this survey is a
disservice to my employee’s ability and training levels.
It is difficult to rate a large staff with varying degrees of responsibility and ability. I
tried to focus on the group as a whole and on average.
I manage a SHRO and most of the work is focused on recruitment and staffing.
However, the HR Specialists would benefit from a solid understanding of all facets
of HR work especially ER. So much of the work is conducted over the phone. I
am sure our SHRO would benefit from training regarding oral communications
and customer service.
All HR professionals must be trained to perform the work the same way to ensure
consistency.
Difficult to complete the survey for several different individuals at different levels
and in different jobs. Not sure how useful this information is in the aggregate.
My employees have noted that self-study/distance courses are the hardest for
them to learn from and complete – they much prefer in-person training.
There appears to be lack of understanding of the basic HR functions throughout
our HR Community. There needs to be a formal training plan with established
competencies/timelines that are reviewed by a senior level HR Specialist. There
also needs to be accountability and a timeline to get an HR Specialist to the
journeyman level. Bottom line, we are only as knowledgeable as who trained us
and our own desire to learn. If something we are taught seems "off", then ask
why and don't accept the answer unless it is conveyed (shown) through law,
regulation or policy. We need to learn how to communicate as one united HR
team.
Employee Survey – Qualitative Responses No offense but we have no money and the people who need to really go will
never get the chance because NER takes all the money and slots.
Advanced HR Information Systems Training is greatly needed. I have a master's
degree in Human Resources-Organizational Development and Change
Management. I came into this position with a varied background. It is very
important to keep up with the changing technology and the ability to use it to its
greatest advantage.
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I have had most training required in my field and can teach most of those topics.
I do believe it is important to have continuing updates to the training as so many
things change in the HR field so short, on-line or group discussions are effective
for the type of training I need on a continuing bases. Several types are available
in our field from MSPB and EEOC and from the Solicitor's office plus the training
we do internally when we gather like-minded specialists together for a round
table discussion on current events and changes to our field of employee
relations.
It's very hard to know where to start! First and foremost it's baffling that an
organization the size of the National Park Service doesn't have a formal,
structured, training infrastructure. As a new employee, there's basically no
systematic training vehicle to equip us with the skills necessary to perform to the
fullest extent. Instead, our training needs are left up to our various direct
supervisors, many of whom do not have the skills necessary to conduct sound skill
assessments. Therefore, training and development are at the mercy of our own
supervisors' judgment, rather than a strategic organizational undertaking. The
result of this unstructured system is significant variation in skill set to the detriment
of the overall organizational performance. Many times – perhaps too many – I
feel that performance, training, and development are not organizational
priorities. At least in my case, for example, I do not have an Individual
Development Plan (IDP). The Federal performance management system is
based upon the principle of constant monitoring of performance elements. An
IDP is a powerful tool to ensure that we possess the skills necessary to perform at
our grade levels, or, in turn, to take corrective actions when that's not the case.
Thus, a Competency Gap Analysis that is not supported by a change in
perspective and approach to job performance is a futile exercise. Indeed, it will
only reveal what we (and management) already know: "the great gap that
exists in our knowledge base." The bigger question, which I hope will be
addressed, is what's the NPS going to do in order to instill a culture of learning
and constant development --which is currently absent. Too often the NPS relies
on pre-packaged training solutions that do not address, sometimes even
indirectly, our training needs. This becomes a problem when we assume training
with disdain simply because of its format. But the root cause of this attitude is the
abuse of this mode of training, rather than utilizing a variety of training formats
and venues. I realize that now budgets are more slim than ever before, but we
need to use creativity at allocating existing resources (including people) to
ensure training is successful; not just a check-the-box exercise to presume
compliance. Finally, it is utterly discouraging to hear management say: "we don't
take adverse actions." I have learned, and observed, that this is sort of the
"culture" of the National Park Service. However, to hear this abominable phrase
from HR folks is astonishing. What message does it send when poor performers
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"get away" with sloppy, careless work? What does that say to employees who
work hard and run the extra mile to make sure we all succeed? Competency
gaps do not occur in a vacuum, rather they are fueled and allowed by a kind of
management ideology that does not care about performance management.
And yes, I don't want to see adverse actions taken against my colleagues, but
when they are necessary they should be management imperative. Tolerance of
poor performance without taking corrective actions, providing needed training,
constant feedback or input, or when necessary taking adverse actions, is in large
part the cause of our current state.
Being a new, and senior HR professional to the NPS, my personal observation is
that the SHRO'ing aspect of HR has/is contributing to the lack of knowledge and
skill of the NPS HR workforce. As a SHRO manager, my employees are arguably
robots who post vacancy announcements via USAJOBs and develop certs and
really do not engage in other important HR work thus limiting their knowledge
and the honing of the skill necessary to be a 'complete' HR Specialist.
This survey should measure participants' opinions regarding the level of these
competencies in the total organization, not just in their personal attributes.
This questionnaire is difficult. For some of the skills, an employee could be highly
qualified, but if he/she is not operating at the WASO-level, he/she could not be
rated at the highest level in accordance with the language in the questionnaire.
As far as the training needed – the questionnaire says "for my job." Does that
mean for me, personally, or for someone/anyone in the job?
More creative ways need to be come up with to allow training at home sites.
Travel is a big issue due to budget and because of limited staff. Field is showing
lack of knowledge in areas that HROC now services and I feel that details to
classification, processing, benefits are needed so basic questions can be
answered and quality reviews can be done so items forwarded to HROC are
good quality products. No real training program to build HR assistants into HRO
specialist. Many HR Specialist transitioned to higher level positions without
changing what they are doing, mainly staffing and a lot of lower level work. No
real understanding what is the difference and lack of time to really do higher
level work because concentrating on getting daily processes completed.
Some of the statements do not address the gap issues that I see in the HR field,
e.g. basic computer skill competency deficits.
Would suggest training in basic advisory services and position management.
I selected formal training for all training as each item would enhance most
anyone's performance and I believe is the preferred method of training. Formal
training by itself would not adequately fulfill the training required to make a good
HR specialist. OJT is restricted by the time given to it and the technical
competence of the person providing the training. Sometimes the way we
did/do things is not the best method. Formal training usually provides outsider
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input and fosters networking and new ideas. It also allows us to concentrate on
the training at hand rather than trying to fit it in amongst our daily work. I
understand OJT has its place but I think that the lack of formal training has
caused a drop in technical competence across HR in Federal government. As a
local intern, I had at least two weeks of formal training each quarter,
supplemented by OJT and strong mentoring program. I think this was an
outstanding method. Currently, the OJT method is not formalized in any fashion
and reflects a "trial by fire" approach to learning. In fact, there is no central
formal training plan for HR interns. The survey does not allow us to pick both
formal and OJT. With regard to job performance, workload management is
inconsistently applied. This negatively impacts HR training in a very distinct way.
The lead specialists carry so much workload, yet they are expected to train and
oversee several other HR interns and junior specialists. If the lead is expected to
oversee subordinate HR staff work, then some consideration should be made in
reducing the direct serviced accounts to allow time for the mentoring of
subordinate staff. This workload would then be pushed down to the subordinate
staff, because in essence, the lead would be responsible for overseeing the work
anyway. I believe in this respect the NPS does not fully utilize my knowledge and
skills as a senior HR Specialist. Although I would love to pass my experience on to
others, I am guilty in that I am more concerned about getting my own work
done rather than facilitating the work of others because that is what I am held
most accountable for and I have too much of it to do much of anything else. I
see this as perpetuating poor HR operations in that the junior staff is not being
adequately trained as they should. I believe my knowledge will be lost when I
leave thus leaving a gap. With all of that being said, I would also encourage you
to add leadership development courses as part of the HR curriculum. It is not
even part of your survey and is one of the most vital aspects of HR workforce
planning. If you don't build tomorrow's leaders today, where will you be? Back
to square one.
This is a very difficult survey to complete. I have expertise in benefits but the
possible responses indicated there weren't certain levels of expertise at the SHRO
level when in fact those levels of expertise are in the SHRO. Is there a training
that will teach HR Professionals how to deal with the fact we can no longer
answer customer questions on certain subjects because of HROC
implementation? How to explain to our customers that we are no longer
allowed to help them? How to explain to our customers why HROC and in some
cases SROC take so long to respond. And how to deal with the resulting
frustration? Is there a class to teach us how to deal with the feeling that the
employees, our customers, no longer matter to those setting up these policies?
So, yes, stress management training is very much needed. Further suitability
adjudication training and staffing MPP and DE is needed.
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I agree with the need for an HR "Bootcamp" however, I feel there is also a need
for an intermediate Assistant to Specialist type training. Thank you.
On the job training is limited in that high skills are not expected of me and I can't
advance my knowledge because the people with the information are too busy
to share information in a consistent manner.
The level of skill seemed skewed toward higher level is only for beyond the SHRO
level. / Succession planning and position management training would be helpful
Formal Training in FPPS, Datamart, and Suitability would greatly enhance my skills
and abilities.
Insulted by the Employee Benefits question..."expertise not found in SHRO". I beg
your pardon, but did all the HR Benefit specialists prior to HROC just vanish or we
lose our memories.....Why is Employee Benefits and Employee Relations mixed for
technical competencies? They are not mixed with HROC nor were they
automatically mixed with SPOs....Very hard to answer that question. Training
Questions. No answer for "Training not necessary as competency is fully
proficient" yet, you wanted us to state what "we" the surveyor needed to be
trained in that competency....very poorly put together.
Most of the training that I have received in the last year with regards to labor
relations, employee benefits and compensation, employee training and
development were through my HR certificate classes. Classes/on the job training
would be most helpful with HR systems such as datamart, FPPS, etc. Also any
trainings related to advanced processing, and pay setting would be helpful. As
someone who is fairly new to HR, within the last 2 years, a fundamentals training
that pertains to basic federal HR would be helpful as part of an orientation.
Having a basic understanding of budget and how positions are funded would
be beneficial when advising managers on making staffing decisions.
Management where I work likes to speak to the idea of training, but the training
that they provide is ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst. Favored
employees, regardless of need or potential benefit, are selected for training; the
rest are neglected or refused training. At some point the NPS has to realize that
no amount of training is going to make some bad managers into good
managers, and that is the source of the problem. Focusing on training needs is
good; however you never ask explicitly if there are a substantial number of
employees and managers who will not improve with training. Many of the HR
functions are failing because poor management of well-trained employees will
still result in a poor product. Organizational awareness is important, particularly in
the NPS. One great problem I observe is that a lot of the HR staff came from
outside the NPS. This is good in that it brings experience in HR technical detail,
but problematic in that many HR staff have little knowledge of or interest in the
parks. They often view their jobs as gatekeepers or wardens, rather than
facilitators of park function.
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It would be nice to have funds for training. We are limited by extremely tight
budgets and I would like to do some training for myself as a SHRO Lead, but feel
our extremely limited training funds are better spent on my staff's training needs.
I would like to attend training on the more basic foundations of HR, such as the
laws and regulations that run our world.
There needs to be more consistency in training of all HR employees nationwide.
Continue training classes for not only HR Specialists, but for HR Assistants as well.
Thank you.
If the training to be taken in a more reasonably time frame, so it can be applies
to the position you are working in.
Wasn't sure how to answer some of the questions about "training". I have
received little to no formal or on the job training in many areas through work, but
am in graduate school (paying for it myself as there is no tuition reimbursement
offered) pursuing a Masters in Human Resources with coursework that focuses on
Human Resource and Organizational Development. Similarly, the experience
that I have in those areas is not related to my actual job duties, but relates to
projects and work I am performing on my own time in relation to my coursework.
So I am applying the techniques on the job, but not because my position
requires it.
I feel that more opportunities for training need to be made available for all HR
staff to continue learning and developing the skills necessary to perform their
jobs.
I believe any amount of training will improve one's capability, capacity, and
performance. Training is needed to maintain, upgrade and update skills
throughout one's working life.
Most of the training I've received has been independent study or from other
areas I've worked. With so many changes in HR and how we are now structured,
it's hard to maintain a variety of specialties when I'm only working at one level. It
is difficult to prepare for the next level when the opportunity to apply a newly
learned skill is not here.
I believe that as HR Specialists it is beneficial to the agency to be cross trained in
all aspects of HR Management.
I think it is a good idea to provide training to HR Specialists as there are many
changes that occur in this type of position. It would be helpful to receive
professional training that you can use as a tool to perform the duties of this
position.
I don't believe that training can equip a person to successfully perform in some
of the areas previously mentioned, e.g., Integrity/Honesty. That is more of a
moral trait that you were either instilled with in one's upbringing or not.
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The ability to be mentored in any capacity to be able to learn would be
wonderful. I have many capabilities that aren't being utilized in my current job
and would love to have the opportunity to use them.
I strongly feel that training should be already in place before new hires on board.
Critical training should not be given via books; such as, USA Staffing, Basic
Staffing, Pay Setting, Classification, Compensation, etc.
Let me start with this is a TERRIBLE survey. This will not give you the actual gap
analysis necessary based on this "assessment type" of survey. It just keeps
everyone in a box and doesn’t get to the core of the problem in HR skill training.
These questions are similar to the terrible assessment questions on Federal
Government Jobs vacancies. This will NOT capture what we are looking for in
regard to needed training. I came to Federal Govt 4 1/2 years ago from 31 years
of HR, Headhunting, the Staffing industry as a Senior Manager in the Private
Sector. All my skills were learned in my 31 years in corporate America. This survey
does not give an applicant the ability, except in this section, to say WHERE they
may have gotten their experience, or not. I checked many boxes as EXPERT due
to my tenure in HR in private industry NOT because of any training in the Govt or
at NPS. I had standard basic training at USDA when I first got here (lucky me as
they don’t even give that training to their new HR employees now. Instead they
get books and online sessions...worthless. You need interaction to truly train
anyone.) This is very disappointing. You may have someone who checks they
have had training but it was at another agency. Will they tell you that in this
portion?? There is no training...very few managers have "expert" knowledge in HR
Operations much less decision making skills, time management skills,
accountability, etc. There is a HUGE skill gap at the SHRO level; there is a bigger
skill gap at the management level and you ask NO questions regarding an HR
Generalist ability to get knowledge from their SHRO lead, HR Officer or HR
Manager. IF this is only focused on the GS-7-12 or 13 HR Generalist you will not
get to the "meat" of the problem. There is no understanding of standardization,
and certainly not when HR Managers put the SHRO concept together...that
should have been part of the strategic plan. When I asked about the SHRO
"business plan" and "standardization", 6 months into my tenure as a new govt
employee (with 31 years’ experience opening HR offices in the staffing industry
all over the US and in Canada) I was told by the "Senior" HR employee setting up
the SHRO's..."this was NOT necessary and there was no business plan". I told her...
it is necessary to make sure all your HR employees know the basics of hiring, pay
setting, etc; without putting that in place first it will come back to bite us in the
end, and NO business plan??. She scoffed...this is just one example of a manager
that had no strategic thinking ability, no deep HR understanding, no insight into
the systems HR generalist use and no project management skills. This starts at the
TOP and needs to trickle down. It starts with making sure you have managers
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that can think strategically (we don’t), make decisions (they don’t) and can hire
the appropriate leader for each SHRO..(much turnover). The SHRO lead should
be the "teach the teacher" as should the HR Managers. If they are not
knowledgeable then they cannot train their employees, but again without
standardization there will always be problems. This survey should have had
questions with basic skill answers and a box to give an addendum to their answer
so you can appropriately understand where the training lacks, where they have
gotten training, who they go to for answers if they don’t know something, etc. It
would take more time to complete a more comprehensive survey, but it is
important enough to require the time. HR Managers, SHRO Leads and HR
Generalists/Assistants need skills training, customer service training, strategic
thinking, communication, writing skills, oral presentation skills and basic HR
knowledge. There is this "pie in the sky" thinking that our SHRO's can provide
consultative services to program managers in all directorates. I would say it is
safe to say the actual managers cannot do that and they hire individuals that
don’t have those skill sets and don’t train them to see if they possess them. There
are no workforce management skills to look at an individual that may be a good
worker bee but cannot or is not comfortable "consulting" a program manager.
Instead they force them to do so with unpleasant results. IT is painful to watch
and I am grateful I spent the time I did in private sector and got the wonderful
training I got there as a manager because it clearly does not happen within the
federal govt. A grade dictates your management job in govt; most do not have
the skill set nor have they been trained to be a manager. Training is not only the
rules and regs of HR but also the other competencies that are necessary to be
"consultative" HR employee. What do the managers do with the good
employee that doesn’t have the skills or personality to be a consultant or the
bad employee that should not be in HR. It is again a strategic thinking process
and if this survey is going to be the tool used....well it will be like the six lean sigma
the managers jumped on. This HR organization is no more ready to use Six Lean
Sigma than it was to be SHRO'd when it was, and processing to be centralized.
All were done without true business thinking skills and understanding of the
ramifications we are now saddled with. I hope this is not the only tool to guide
management on the true HR skill gap because I do not believe this survey will
give that synopsis.
We don't get any on-going training.
Many of these questions do not apply to this position. Another category should
have been there stating that.
Need more staff and funding in order to have the resources necessary to DO the
job AND get an adequately trained work force.
The National Park Service lacks consistent and uniform formal training. That
causes maximum variations and thus maximum inconsistencies.
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With many functions being centralized, the selections should have stated with a
selection "I have not had training in this area". The National Park Service
historically provides little training to employees. You typically have to teach
yourself or and find someone you can ask questions when you need further
guidance. I was fortunate that when I came to my current position I did
received more training than at any other time in my career. Partially because it
was required in order to perform my work. Other training to learn how to perform
work I am expected to do. So I was fortunate but the job requires so much
knowledge that training should be ongoing. Instead with the state of the Federal
Government I imagine it will mostly cease to exist except for training required to
perform you job.
Any training would enhance job performance.
Truly this is the worse skill gap survey I have ever seen or participated in. It is
another example of not really knowing what your SHRO's do on a day to day
basis. This is NOT going to tell you where the skill gaps are. This is a bad
assessment questionnaire from a vacancy announcement. I have gotten 95% of
my training in the 31 years I spent in Private Sector...so how can you truly assess
my skill gap at NPS? You cannot based on how you asked questions! I have a lot
of knowledge in consultative skills that this survey focused on, but that is because
of my tenure in the workforce, my private sector training that was superb
compared to the HR training given to HR employees. This will be the same for
most employees and most of the questions asked do not address the actual day
to day HR Specialists skills needed. I am not sure who put this survey together
and/or how you will gather and analyze this information but I would love to see
the results and see how you analyze the data. How can you even determine if
the HR Specialist needs help in Hiring, WIG's, promotions, FPPS, etc? There should
have been questions such as: Do you know the steps to the pay setting of an
employee moving from one locality region to another? When is the last time you
receive training, or have you received training in this area. Asking a blanket
question regarding "compensation" is not going to provide a true skill gap
picture. Very disappointing survey!
I think that anyone who comes to work for the Federal government should go
through training on the way the Federal hiring system works. Things that I would
suggest would be the different ways that employees are hired - some of the
acronyms (sp), and the way that the Federal system works. It would be very
helpful.
My direct supervisor does not have a diverse background in all HR disciplines, nor
a basic understanding of my line of work I was hired to perform and therefore, is
not a resource for me to go to. My direct supervisor also does not provide any
ideas for solutions to situations or to my ideas and/or feedback for personal
growth and work objectives. Without a basic understanding, my direct
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supervisor continues to establish and expect unrealistic time frame(s) for work
accomplishment of assigned tasks.
Stakeholder Survey – Qualitative Responses I feel that when I need something I bumble around until I find it. If you could print
this survey – every year – with a name and contact info associated with each
topic, I think it might clarify a lot. I feel like those of us in the field are still in
transition from when the parks supplied all the HR guidance.
I realize that when I have questions I go to the assigned HR specialist connected
with HROC. She in turn either follows up for me with the SHRO or refers me to a
specific person. In undertaking this survey, I realize that most of my direct
interface is with HROC, not the SHRO.
SHRO appears to be a necessary evil. I wish my SHRO lived up to competencies
detailed in these questions. I wish they could be part of park's management
structure but are seen as outsiders and occasionally as obstructionists.
My assumption is that if they are employed with HR that they should be doing all
of these things such as keeping up on HR specific technical quidance
Our Shro staff works hard. However they are under staffed and policy has been
changing at a rapid pace. There are many more bureaucratic "hurtles" to go
over to get anything done. Also, there have been more errors then compared to
when HR was localized in my opinion. Overall myself and others have had issues
with HROC and there customer service and reliance. Some of the errors on their
part from not including required paper work for seasonal hires or failure to check
in on progress of said paperwork has put employees and the park operations
into unfavorable situations financially, efficiently and with overall morale.
Four weeks to process a form, and if it didn't arrive the correct color it was lost,
ignored, etc... Two years to unfortunately dismiss a gov't employee (service 15+
year career) because of medical issues, then the situation excelled to life health
safety. Very scary! A Vet! Why? The requirements of a operations supervisor are
enormous, and the SHRO just jump on top of these people... never helpful!
I think the Anch HR staff does a fantastic job. They obviously work hard, are
knowledgable, ethical, easy to work with and are very "service" oriented. On
another note, I filled out this survey for SHROC group and not the HROC group.
They are different and therefore my answers to this survey are applicable to the
one group.
We really need a new approach to hr...many of us work around the system to
get modern hr work done.
Generally speaking, HR staff need to develop a much more customer service
orientation. They should take more pride in serving others who have HR problems
and not just be the people who recite rules and regulations and say NO to
questions.
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About this in particular? I already answered it. About something unrelated? Sure.
It once took 9 months after my submission of a vacancy announcement
package to SERO HR (before the SHRO) to get a vacancy announced – just
announced, not filled. I could have gotten pregnant and had a baby in that
time. Ridiculous. And guess what – the HR person at SERO admitted that there
were no errors or issues with the package I submitted. It just sat on their desk.
ARGH.
It is my experience that HR is something that functions at the larger parks, regions
and WASO. Small parks – 25 or fewer employees can not afford and are
somewhat discouraged from having HR staff. Like so many important things we
do, HR as a small park is a collateral duty with other Admin functions and the
rolling up of many HR activities to SHROs and the HROC has made the task at the
park level even more challenging and employees in these parks are subject to
the skills and interests of the AO. Fortunately, I have a great AO who tries to keep
up, but it gets harder and harder with all of the other responsibilities included in
the position.
Very confusing who is the resource to use now. HROC? SHRO?
It seems that the SHRO is known for some information and tasks, but not for
others. It would be nice to know exactly what the SHRO can do and what
services they can provide. I strongly suggest the SHRO staff visiting parks in their
group to get an idea of what the park needs are.
I only have the one issue with not having jobs advertised in a timely manner and
then receiving the cert .
You have seen the material before you. SERO is now on its second major
reorganization of HR interface for the parks that I am aware of since I got here.
We will see what comes out of their office in the next month, if anything, to
demonstrate that we are back on to a system that can work. Also, is this some
kind of joke sending this survey out when we are facing sequestration order and
have been told that there is an across the System hiring freeze, except for
Spdts.? A bit odd.
Over the past 4 months I have submitted applications for CSRS Retirement via
more than one retirement-plan (i.e. Disability, and Optional/Standard) and I've
asked questions about "Deferred Retirements" and the HROC representative has
been very helpful in addressing my needs, concerns and questions.
I have had very positive experiences working with HR professionals.
I have had better experiences dealing with HROC on individual needs (e.g.
spouse's retirement from federal service and transferring benefits to me) as well
as position classification, than I have with the SHRO. I believe many of the SHRO
issues relate to getting it up and running, but it's challenging for managers to
have to keep track of who does what and where they are located. I think our
SHRO also has some challenging personnel issues of its own that it is addressing.
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HROC transition seemed much smoother and staff seems much more responsive
and knowledgeable.
Phone calls to SHRO and HROC are always taken by voice mail, which is not
returned in a timely manner.
The good HR folks seem to be people that use common sense frequently and
are able to understand how different things can be called different things. For
example, "oral argument" would be a good example of communication. Or,
biology and ecology are equivalent. The difficult HR folks are people that are
extremely rigid and don't recognize that anything out of a communication
degree can be considered to give the person communication experience. I
have worked with both types of people in HR, and it is difficult because these
issues seem to be personality-driven (person-specific). I would also like to observe
that everything in the HR world seems to be taking longer. By having the SHRO's
pulled out of the park, there is now a disconnect between park staff and HR. The
SHRO's are often administrative driven instead of being park oriented. A number
of SHRO people tell us why things can't be done in a certain way, but don't help
us with how things could be done. Having the HR folks in the parks was better for
park staff.
From this survey, I'm finding out that my SHRO office has greater resources and
help available to give me than I know.
The specifics of a case described earlier involved veterans preference and an
unwillingness to allow a selecting official to return a cert with veterans without
hiring from it. The selecting official was ordered to make a selection from the
cert. The reasoning was that it was clear to the HR person, that the selecting
official had an anti-vet bias. After investigating, I found that the selecting official
was a vet himself, and had 60% vets on his staff. Even after this, the "order" stood.
I found this to be an unacceptable overstepping of authority. We found a way
to work around the specific situation, but still were compelled to take the case to
the regional office. Since by the time we were able to do so – the situation was
resolved, we are not sure if anything will be done to prevent recurrence.
Once again, all aspects of regional HR Specialists (especially in the IMR) are
fabulous. The SHRO is horrible but improving slightly.
I believe the SHROs are excellent advisers to managers and employees in the
Intermountain Region. They consist of extremely dedicated staff members who
want to serve parks and do an outstanding job!
Overall the SHRO does a good job however their are some people that are old
school and need to go because of consistencies.
One last area that we've struggled with at the park is the issue of employee
safety and HR rules. We have had several conversations with HR about
employees who may not be fit for the duty or have chronic issues that make
them susceptible to on-the-job injury. It has never been clear to us at the park
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our authority and proper methods to manage these issues. But with employee
safety being such a strong focus, we need to be getting more definitive answers
from HR.
I think understanding workload in the field and being flexible is an area where HR
could us improvement. I was sadden to hear [name omitted] was leaving as
our SHRO lead because I saw how he responded to challenges and the flexibility
and nimbleness he showed.
I was sent a link regarding my question very prompltly.
Everything to this date has been negative with HR. They can't seem to do their
job and are not held accountable for deadlines not being met. They are not
helpful and always have excuses. We tend to bang our heads on the wall when
it comes to HR. They do not work in Parks and don't seem to treat us as a clients
or patrons. If they were in the real world they would have been fired
Again, it all depend on who you ask. Some HR people are wonderful and can be
completely trusted. Others should be avoided.
Overall, I received better customer service from my park's HR personnel than
from the centralized HR office. They better understood my program and
personnel needs and were far more responsive to my requests for assistance.
Since moving to the centralized model, HR processes such as hiring and
personnel actions require more lead time and take much longer to complete.
HR services are terribly deficient, impersonal, and chaotic. Park staff have no
idea who to speak to and their inquiries get passed from person to person.
Emails and calls go unanswered, critical tasks go undone, park managers who
are not HR personnel are expected to to fill out forms that they have absolutely
no idea how to compete, and then when they get it wrong, they are blamed for
the consequences,
The quality of the HR help depends so much on the competency and attitude of
the individual involved. And that varies widely. Some HR staff I have dreaded
doing work with and others I have been delighted to work with.
There have been a few instances of miscommunications, but generally HR staff is
helpful.
The people at the AZ SHRO seem nice, but this is a business we are trying to run.
Everyone is busy, I get that, but at some point in time, the excuses need to stop. I
don't believe that any of the staffing specialist have any idea what the field is
looking for or even needs in applicants, which becomes more apparent when
the hiring officials receive their certs. A suggestion would be for the staffing
specialist spend a few days working the field so that they know what is needed
and necessary to do the job. They can also then request help from the hiring
official to go through the applicants so the hiring official knows what the staffing
specialist needs to go through to actually have a cert. Respect can go a long
way for the field and office folks.
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My interactions with SHRO and HROC have been negative - employees have
poor attitude, cannot address or resolve issues, and have questionable expertise
No, if they do not know, they are not paying attention.
When I mention the SHRO lead, I am referring to the two previous SHRO leads in
the National Parks of NY Harbor. I cannot evaluate the current acting lead as he
has only been in the position for 2 weeks.
I have had several issues that I needed to involve many HR staff and offices. The
guidance is not always clear. I am also puzzled that very few of the issues that
are researched are shared with all the Parks. I know of several issues that much
time was spent researching for my park and nothing was ever shared in writing.
The issues that my park experienced are similar for other sites. I feel that the
guidance should be communicated to all the Parks that my SHRO services.
Have had a few horrible experiences with HR and OPM involving hiring and
application of veteran priorities; essentially received adversarial treatment
instead of assistance. Have had wonderful experience with at least SHRO
employee becoming proactive in following up, contacting us and looking for
solutions instead of restating problems.
Personnel matters are EXTREMELY process heavy and obscure. My EPAP when I
started my present job was 6 pages long. It is now 22 pages long.
Changing PD's and updating duties needs have been done timely.
Always pleasant to work with and helpful
In general, I find that the HR community throughout the NPS to be
knowledgeable, helpful, reliable, etc. Where we have HR challenges, I believe
that most, if not all, are driven by political, budget, and policy decisions outside
the immediate control of the NPS HR staff (e.g. OPM, OMB, DOI, etc.). The only
exception might be our internal workflow and timelines for processing actions,
etc., which make it increasingly difficult to utilize a highly seasonal workforce, but
I would like to think that our HR folks do all that they can to process things as
quickly as possible. Also, just as a minor annoyance, if we are going to give
service awards (5, 10 , 15, etc.) year certificates and pins at all, we need to do a
better job of giving them to everybody – how damned hard is it to know how
long our staff has worked for us and whether or not they got a certificate – it is
demoralizing to those who care about such honors, and even for those who
don't, it makes everybody question how well the organization does at tracking
the really important things that might impact our pay and benefits down the
road.
HR staff I've encountered all are friendly and I think most are well informed. I just
don't know who does what anymore, though it appears our office has staffed up
in recent years, even with the establishment of the HROC. I know they keep busy
with training and/or meetings because people there often are not in their offices
when I've come to see who might be able to help me with a question I have. I
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have no clue who works in our HROC, though the individual I communicated
with via email a couple of months ago was helpful and timely in responding to a
request. A few years ago I was involved with an EEO complaint (an employee
made a complaint against me). It was a big surprise to me and ended up being
resolved in my favor, but it took about a year to wind its way through the system,
which seemed crazy to me. Based on advice from our HR office, I felt hamstrung
to properly supervise the individual because of what might appear to be
retaliatory action. I did not feel well-served by HR in that situation. I felt as if I was
hanging out to dry. And the other employees were affected as well because this
individual was a problem (e.g., confrontational to me and to others). From the
start, the EEO counselor, in response to my comment about not believing I had
acted in a manner to warrant the complaint, told me that "everyone says that."
That was not a helpful response to someone who had never been involved in an
EEO complaint. The person who filed the complaint has filed another one against
a subsequent supervisor. He was a difficult employee and I did not feel well-
supported in how to best operate other than being told to not act in any way he
might consider to be retaliatory, which could have been anything. That situation
had a pretty negative effect on me, even though I was vindicated. It didn't
bother me so much at first, but as it dragged out for months and months it
began to take a toll on my morale. The kicker is that the subsequent supervisor
inherited a problem employee and also now shoulders an EEO complaint from
this individual.
Nothing ever changes, we never fire anyone, we promote people who shouldn't
be promoted and the same old race and gender gaps are there. New rules,
shifts in power and ethnic makeup, but still the same game. This is never going to
change unless we start hiring using a system where numbers are assigned and
use numeric scores, so you can't tell a persons age, race, sex, etc. Whatever
happened to the civil service exam? That wasn't a bad idea.
The topic of furloughs for term employees. Different HR staff at region gave
different answers on length, requirements, etc. My confidence in their direction
based on the regs is not very high.
I believe the HR Community is proactively staged to identity and address those
competencies that will bring us into the second century of NPS service at the top
of the HR Profession. It will, however, take continued support and funding from
management, and a cultural change within the NPS to accept that we are
stronger as One HR than 7 Regions and WASO.
Again, see my very long comment at the beginning of this survey. The current
personnel system is simply broken. People lie to get on certs... and resumes are
not checked against the responses. If people are not required to write KSA's
anymore, they should be required to show how their answers to skill questions
align with the work, educational, and volunteer experiences reported on their
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uploaded resume or usajobs-generated resumes. Too many people answer "E"
for all questions.
Timely response has been an issue. Ability to contact SHRO has not always been
easy
HR employees provide excellent work and are strong on following established
procedures. They are more limited in being creative and forward thinking. We
also need to strive for continuous improvement in the time it takes to process a
personnel action.
[Name omitted] is an excellent communicator and very helpful. He brought on a
new team member [name omitted] who has helped me tremendously as a
supervisor. I am so grateful to both of them for their assistance. I'm very happy
they both now work for NPS!
The entering of my gender wrongly caused several unnecessary chain reactions
in medical and other areas.
Realizing that the HR transformation has been a work in progress, it has been very
difficult for those of us in the field. The SHRO and HROC do not seem to
understand that we have no HR specialized personnel located at the park. Our
designated POCs are usually AOs or Admin Specialists with very limited HR
knowledge. There has been very little advertising to explain which services are
provided by which organization. Additionally, it seems there is a large amount of
turnover in the SHRO which hampers continuity of services.
In park there seems to be little understanding or confidence about HR issues,
SHRO is good when needed but I have not needed the work of HR much. HROC
seems isolated and mysterious to me.
There have been growing pains with the HR realignment; as with any such
action, problems and issues can and do arise. For the most part, our SHRO has
been responsive; there have been issues with the required HSPD-12 on-boarding
and background process such as fingerprints being rejected two and three
times; needs to be better/more efficient processes and procedures in place for
this aspect of hiring. There have also been issues for new employee orientation
in that a supervisor/manager only finds out a day or two before that an
employee is scheduled for this; there needs to be more coordination in this arena
as not all employees are on a traditional M-F 8-5 schedule. Needs to be more
lead time to make this happen efficiently and effectively.
I avoid talking to anyone in HR if possible. They are unapproachable, unfriendly,
and are unhelpful.
Over many years I have received highly conservative (cautious) counsel
regarding performance and misconduct issues that in my view handicapped
management and supervisory leadership in addressing problem employees.
Despite all the negative input and criticism I have voiced in this survey, I want to
acknowledge that I find our SHRO lead to be very knowledgeable, and as
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supportive as she can be in an HR organization that has major systemic
problems, and that is organizational dysfunctional (or so it seems to me from the
field).
I think the attempt has been made to consolidate the resources and provide
some sort of unified approach with the establishment of the SHRO. The system
was broken getting it off the ground and executing actions. I would say within
the past few months things have changed with the hiring of new employees that
seem competent and willing to assist. There is a sense of frustration that still
lingers with our NCR SHRO, hopefully it will disiptate in the future
We seem to repeat much of the paperwork processes. Errors have been made
regarding term appointments moving to new appointments in a different series
and grade. WIGI's are frequently not made on time (allows for what is owed to
build) and employees are not paid the accurate amount when this happens.
No but I would like to say that this format leaves no option for recognizing the
exceptions that provide good to superior service nor does it allow us to
recognize that many have not received the training or management to support
and incentivize good performance. So in disagreeing with the positive
statements, I am reflecting general perceptions of performance and not
recognizing that there are strong performers with good work ethics within the
WASO SHRO and HROC
I only work with one HR person, so you can't read trends into overall HR
competencies with my responses
I just don't have enough exposure to these HR people to have an opinion. I feel
like I am the wrong person to do this interview.
Many of the questions above were difficult to answer because they assume the
rater has a higher level of insight to the inner world of the HR specialist. The
individual I work with is terrific. I have have high confidence in her ability. She
knows her stuff and couldn't be more helpful.
I find HR to be knowledgeable yet inflexible. Accurate yet not creative. Solutions
oriented yet without regard for environment.
While things have gotten better in the last year I find that there is a significant
lack of consistency with decision making. Some of the obvious hostility has been
reduced but not all. I still feel like the SHRO specifically has an attitude that they
are the ones in charge and that they have the final say in all HR decisions. I
don't see where anyone in HR at this time has any interest in helping the end user
which is suppose to be the employees, especially when we are trying to bring
on seasonals, hire permanents, and fix HR issues for current perm employees.
It seems to me that when you have a personnel question or any other HR
question, I get never get the same answer and I rarely walk away feeling the I
have the correct information. Some are well versed in HR policies and
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procedures and others are not. There is no sense of urgency during the posting of
jobs, returning of certs to parks and other activities during the hiring process.
Since HROC/Shro took place the bureaucracy , errors and delays in customer
service have been overwhelming. Most conversations among staff about
HROC/Shro are negative. Most supervisors/employees had been negatively
effected by the process. It is now expected that errors will be made and
employees/morale will suffer those consequences that are so common now. The
statement "I bet it's only going to get worse" is heard a lot by myself from
supervisors in other divisions.
Processing times for very SIMPLE paperwork or toggle of a computer program are
unreasonable! Package requests are understandably time sensitive, very simple
requests have the same "assembly line" priority as huge package tasks, and the
unreasonableness of time to process is NOT industry standard. Again SHRO
bottlenecks the process.
We need customer service training or hr nationwide. They all need to go to
fundamentals if working 5 years or less in nps.
Customer service can be very slow at times. Position classification is weak and in
three occasions their work has been overturned by OPM.
A few years ago – maybe 2009 – we tried advertising for seasonal biotechs. The
cert came back loaded with people who had ZERO skills in biological sciences.
Many didn't even have science degrees. We knew of interns in our office who
had applied who had been doing the same kinds of work for six months to a
year. We formally protested. It took several months, the HR (I think they were in
Denver) had "attitude" with us, and they decided to throw a few people off the
cert, but not to add any new names. So we wound up forced to hire people
who had degrees only but no field experience. It set us back several weeks. I'm
really sad there is no more SCEP because you used to be able to hire good
people that way, people you knew had the skills, training and experience. Now
you are forced to advertise via Pathways. I never wanted to advertise again,
after that experience.
My recent experience is that performance of SHRO I work with is improving.
However, they still return work for petty errors, errors they correct themselves, but
send back resulting in delays and frustration. Some employees seem very
dogmatic and inflexible. In one case it seemed that the SHRO employee was
usurping the authority of the Superintendent and park division chiefs.
I do not feel qualified to answer any of these questions. As a new employee I do
not feel I have enough information to answer these questions. I have only spoken
to HR employees about one or two specific matters and not about the things
asked for in these questions.
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More and more HR is a faceless process that relies on individual employees
knowing what to do with their own files. My answer best describes my encounter
with HR when going through the hiring process.
In the park I work we seldomly have interaction with HR. Usually phone calls is
the only interaction . Yes at one point and time when I did work in Carlsbad
Caverns and had interaction with HR for the most part some individuals did not
have full knowledge of what I was seeking for pertaining to certs, employee
incidents such as injuries and responding to OWCP forms. With cut backs
employees find themselves trying to find answers and it takes a long time.
MWR HR staff is usually pretty good at interpreting the rules. Unfortunately, the
rules do not favor park operations. So, HR usually is blamed for being the
messenger. For this survey, there should be a "Don't know" option for responses to
the questions
HR seems to be struggling with the requirement of their jobs.
More timely response to high seasonal demands (i.e. hiring seasonal workers in
the spring for summer work or the flood of work that typically comes at end of
field season when workers are leaving ) through increased workforce to handle
the demands or perhaps OT, to effectively respond to those demands. Day to
day, more willingness to keep working hours that correspond to other typical
working hours in the park. Trying to get anything done with HR after 4 pm is
difficult.
Our SHRO works hard to provide services for our park. We have had some
resources, mostly dealing with hiring practices. Other superintendents in our
region have had many problems with our SHRO. It seems to me that the expertise
is present, but the application of the expertise comes from confusion and too
much information. Interpretation of practices and policies have resulted in one
SHRO doing things very differently from another SHRO. Standardization and
streamlining could be done at all levels. It is frustrating to spend time completing
one task only to find that you completed the wrong task and have another hoop
to jump through. The SHRO appears to be so separated from the NPS parks and
mission that it doesn't know how to work within the same reality park managers
work within in a park environment. They are so nice and responsive when called
and asked questions, but they tend to express how difficult their work
environment is and how stressed they become with various edicts. My personal
take is that these employees are very much swayed by WASO and the written
word. They are not free to be innovative or to apply creative solutions to field
problems. The few times when the SHRO has strayed into innovative territory for
our park have ended with wonderful results. I sensed a secrecy about applying
innovation or creativity to solutions and have been asked not to share the
information. This belief system and working environment cannot help but create
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a paranoid SHRO staff afraid to take risks. The stress that the SHRO is under to do
more with less is palpable.
It takes a long time to get a job advertised and then to get a cert back to hire
off of.
Yes, I would. I am aware, now having met HR people from other regions, that the
SERO has terrible problems here with HR. I have found, trying to develop
materials to post-positions, on two separate occasions, that they tend to offer no
salient technical support and tend to drop all requests for assistance back on to
the Parks or Park leads to develop positions descriptions, KSAs, and supporting
materials. I am uncertain why the Park unit should be paying for these services,
when we are doing 80% of the work. In my two years at this Park I have never
been told who my EEOO is, who my SHRO representative is to talk about personal
personnel issues, nor has anyone from Region reached out to me as a new
employee. I have had to do all of my own outreach from this desk without any
outside assistance. The only reason that I know what my rights are, who to go to
for problems, are based on my own initiatives and through friends working in
other regional HR offices.
The West Shro has always been helpful, kind, and knowledgeable when needing
there assistance.
I recently transferred from another Government agency to the NPS and the WMR
SHRO did an outstanding job and went above what I expected to get
everything in order for the transfer. I ran into some minor problems with HROC
and found they were not as pleasant in assisting me and their response time was
not what I have come to expect from other Human Resource agencies and this
caused me some delay in processing that could have had a potential impact
on my family .
Classification efforts are not supportive of agency mission, and unique agency
unit situations. Development of new agency procedures is too slow in coming –
development of process regarding Pathways program is a good example.
Expertise to utilize unusual hiring authorities is lacking and tentative – examples
would include: Pathways, contiguous hiring authority, PLC hiring authority, RM
intern hiring authority.
The folks I have interacted with in YNP and BLRI have been OUTSTANDING,
helpful, and professional. I have been very impressed by their efforts and
expertise to help me get my job accomplished!
No specifics to share. Most of my answers were "Neither Agree nor Disagree"
because the "HR employees" is a strongly non-homogeneous group with respect
to the various questions. Where I saw a preponderance one way or another, I
rated accordingly.
My experience with HR is largely limited to hiring of seasonal employees. The
announcement of jobs, evaluation of prospective employees, job offering,
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cutting the paperwork and getting someone on board for a 120 season has just
become so convoluted as to be nearly unworkable. It takes 5 weeks or more
once the offer is made. Applicants have learned to rate themselves the highest
on AQ's which results in a cert loaded with applicants who haven't been vetted
by HR. We get certs with the caveat to contact HR prior to talking with a
prospective employee so HR can check and see if they are qualified. If you
have an emergency and critical need to hire staff quick...forget it. It takes 3
weeks. On the other hand, the HR staff I've dealt with when I've had
performance or conduct issues with employees have been very helpful.
HR Employees are too far removed from park operations – they don't relate well
to field needs/situations/requirements. This results in products/policies neither
practical nor provide the appropriate assistance to the field. Processes between
field - SHRO - HROC are bureaucratic and often contra-productive. Instead of
effective and efficient handling of HR matters, the process is burdensom and
frustruating to the field, more often than not adding unnecessary workload to the
field units.
[Name omitted] is great – she is a great example of a dedicated HR employee.
In my experience, though HR employees are knowledgeable about some rules
and regulations, information provided to supervisors is inconsistent and often
conflicting. HR employees have been belligerent and combative rather than
helpful and constructive when trying to resolve issues that arise. On more than
one occasion I have had to speak with the supervisors of the HR employees to
deal with issues related to the way the HR employees have treated my
employees. Though not universal with respect to all HR employees, I have found
this to be true more often than not.
I honestly believe the entire SHRO/HROC idea is a complete failure. All hiring
authority should be returned to the parks.
I rarely interact with HR employees, which makes answering these questions
difficult. I cannot judge their behavior because I do not see it on a regular basis.
My most recent interaction with an HR employee was when I applied for a
cultural resources manager position in GOSP. The HR specialist determined that I
did not meet the minimum education requirements for a GS-9 historian. I am
currently a GS-11 historian in the NPS Southeast Regional Office and have
undergraduate and graduate degrees in Art History. [Name omitted] informed
me that because my degree was not in "history" she disqualified me. She also
told me that she disqualified all applicants with Historic Preservation Degrees and
Public History degrees. She had a very narrow definition of what qualified as
"history" which demonstrated that she did not understand the social sciences,
the role of history in the NPS, or the duties of a cultural resources manager. In
addition, the OPM qualifications clearly state that "Graduate study in the social
sciences or humanities may also be credited when such study included training
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in historical research methodology; or the thesis approached the subject from an
historical viewpoint and used professional historical research methodology and
techniques in its preparation." Clearly Art History, Public History, and Historic
Preservation are degrees in History, but even if [name omitted] didn't think they
were she should have concluded that they involve training in historic research
methodology. It was clear that she was following her interpretation of the rules
without any actual thought. I asked for a reconsideration and she informed me
that her supervisor agreed with her. Ultimately I contacted [name omitted] who
put me in touch with [name omitted] who straightened everything out and
forwarded my application to the hiring official. My situation is disturbing to me for
two reasons: 1.) The complete misunderstanding of the social sciences by an HR
official charged with evaluating candidates in the social sciences 2.) had I not
already worked within NPS and had contacts who could direct me to the
correct person I would have been left without recourse. When I asked [name
omitted] to explain her findings she simply said that her supervisor agreed with
her, there was no process for appeals.
When consulting with a human resource specialist about the qualifying
education required for a job in interpretation, I wanted to add a master's degree
in heritage interpretation and they told me there was no such degree. I told
them there were several colleges that have that or a similar degree. I was not
impressed with this clear lack of knowledge about the field of interpretation.
There are currently a lot of changes/evolutions which have been hard for park
staff and also difficult for SHRO people because things are unclear as to how to
implement these changes. For example, local hire was just reinstated, and the
SHRO is currently working out how this will be enacted. It's difficult when the park
needs to deal with locals and why specific people aren't being qualified as
locals without how the SHRO is rating this. Also, Pathways is not clear yet how the
actual use of the program will happen. Finally, I think resume evaluation is often
very subjective to the SHRO person rating the resume. There are often strict
interpretation of policies, versus more common sense driven ones. For example,
most people would agree that any one that has a law degree must possess a
certain level of communication skills. However, in our SHRO, a person with a
bachelor's degree in communication was considered to be above a person who
held a law degree and who had practiced law.
Folks working at the SHRO office always seem overloaded with work and there is
always a backlog. I realize it is not the fault of any individual and instead it is the
process....but it takes a long time to accomplish any type of hiring. SHRO staff
has always been good about giving a time estimate as to when they can get to
"my" request and they are good with their estimates. It seems like they need
more staff at the SHRO office(s) to process HR requests quicker. Or maybe have
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some SHRO staff duty stationed in other outlying park offices to deal with some
HR business on a more local level.
Personnel managers seem to have more difficulty than subordinate staff.
Managers have to deal with issues and decisions that are at a higher level – and
seem to have difficulty with that. From a park perspective, the personnel
function is having difficulty supporting park management needs – in some cases
there appears to be little concern for how that will affect the park. Meeting
personnel management seems to comes first – often at the expense of the parks.
Seasonal hiring systems still have unresolved problems like timing and quality of
applicants. The HR function lifted a number of FTEs from parks to establish their
operations. Now they attempting to shift work back to parks and we don't have
anyone left to handle the load. The more functions are centralized, the less
responsive they become to field operations. Nothing is being done to overcome
this perception or to establish customer service expectations or feedback
mechanism to deal with issues as they arise.
A HR rep whom was ineffective, slow, unresponsive, lacked the ability to keep
commitments and ultimately issued a certificate that was pulled and an
individual whom had been offered and accepted a verbal offer had the
certificate pulled after the position was offered and I sought a written offer. The
individual was a transexual and the issue ended up going to a congressional. All
because the HR person dragged their feet for 9 months then under pressure after
I went to the top in region, certified the individual when they should not have.
The individual was then offered a seasonal job which they took but the stress led
to a meltdown of that individual and a negative outcome for them. This was
totally blown by the individual in HR.
I answered the HR questions in relation to the SHRO – horrible customer service
and knowledge base. If the questions were meant for the HR Specialist who work
out of region and assist parks with personnel issues like termination, then my
answers would all be strongly agree. They are extremely knowledgeable and
have great customer service. They are trusted to know the answer. If you call the
SHRO, you better already know the answer because they may give you a wrong
one.
SHRO communications are usually overly laden with jargon and rarely answer the
question of 'so what?' Efforts to find information from a SHRO usually takes 2-3
tries. SHRO employees are genuinely friendly and they do try, but very few know
the policies and regs well enough to answer a complicated question. I can
answer the simple questions; it is the complicated ones I need help with. I call a
SHRO knowing that I probably will not get a useful answer.
A consistent issue I've had with HR personnel over several years is a strong
tendency to pursue personal interpretations of HR guidelines and regulations. In
my experience this has led to guidelines being applied very differently and
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inconsistently by different offices, regions and individuals. I am astonished that
there has never been an attempt to standardize interpretation of certain
regulations to avoid this variation. I am also surprised that HR personnel aren't
instructed to get input from a supervisor when guidelines are vague in order to
avoid inconsistent interpretation of guidelines. In conversation with other NPS
staff it seems to me that this concern is shared by many staff but no one feels
they have recourse to address this.
Perception is from the field and through experience is that the SHRO staff would
be quick to say no to position classifications instead of working with the park staff
to find out how out how can get the position classified with the target grade in
mind. Another words they are lacking in customer service to the parks.
As a SHRO they seem to have a strong focus on consistency of process and don't
seem to place an equal priority on meeting park needs. Stated differently the
focus on process does not always end up with a useful result.
Personally I can say that I could give you HR specialists that do all or most of the
above and I could also show you ones that don't do all or most of the above. I
answered in what I feel is the "norm" for my experience. Please also note that
until recently we were serviced by an HR specialist that often provided
inaccurate information and was extremely unreliable. That person is no longer
with the agency and would skew my answers toward the negative. Most of the
people we work with are knowledgable, the question is do they see them selves
as helping us get to what we need or where we want to go or are they a
roadblock to making things happen.
I applied for a new position within my park, within the same division and was
accepted into the new position. My supervisor never turned in the needed SF52,
this was never caught by our HR person or our AO. When my checks (pay) didn't
reflect the new position, I was told by our HR person and our AO that these things
take time. The next PP I was told to let them know if nothing changed the
following PP and the good thing is that it will all be retro. When it didn't show up
the next PP our AO looked into and found that the 52 had never gotten put in. At
that point I ended up having to wait an additional 6 weeks and no retro. Though
the problem stems from my supervisor not turning in the 52, it does seem as
though it should have gotten caught at some other level? I never even got an
apology...both my supervisor and the AO gave me a reply of OOPS. I am a
supervisor and I once missed a deadline for a STAR award for one of my
employees and I did everything in my power to try and make it up to her without
her realizing (she didn't even know that I had planned on giving her one). I have
seen similar circumstances happen within other divisions and HR and our AO
blames the supervisor...and until it happened directly to me I too thought it was
just the supervisor. Every time I work with our folks at the regional office they are
spot on, very helpful and always follow through with whatever the issue is. I often
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feel caught up having to work with the people here in the park and it's frowned
upon to work out of the chain. If it weren't for my own park the scores would be
much higher.
The HROC seems to have no understanding of what it is like to work in a park.
They forget that their purpose is to serve the parks and not the other way around.
They have an overinflated sense of authority, to the point of writing rules and
regulations without (apparently) consulting the field. Speaking in generalities, HR
staff are often quick to say "no" and lack flexibility in looking for legal alternatives
to accomplish a specific park goal.
I don't have much interaction with HR employees accept for one who is auite
helpful. He is the management specialist and carries tremendous responsibilities. I
have found him to be very thorough and helpful in dealing with OWCP cases.
All deadlines set by AZSHRO are met by my division, but they can never meet
their deadlines. Paperwork requirements change every time and no set
standards seem to apply to them only to us. Priorities are ever changing and our
administrators are always fighting to get things done with little to know help.
They are stove piped and our administration seem to do all their work for them
and they still can't get the work done
Experiences have been much more positive over last five years, but still receive
many signals that HR staff are overworked and/or under staffed. Universally, I go
to them, and other than regular emails, perceive little active outreach on their
part.
The centralized human resources offices are not working.
It's difficult to have your phone calls returned and emails responded to.
Resetting of passwords for quicktime – I have personally witnessed my employees
and myself going for two payperiods before a password would be reset and
that's with numerous calls and emails. I submitted an exemplary act award
several years ago and had to follow up twice only to be asked to resubmit the
documents each time. It took almost a year and probably would've taken
longer if I hadn't stayed on top of it and made inquiries on a regular basis.
Information at times, has been incorrect. A 6C position had to be re-advertised
because it was announced incorrectly. It's a calamity of errors and the park
AO's won't complain about it for fear of retaliation. And now everything takes
twice as long to process because we send things to the SHRO and then it goes
to HROC and then back to SHRO. Just to change an employee's schedule can
take 2-3 months for processing. It's pathetic.
The following text cut and pasted from an auto-generated email I received last
year: Thanks you for your interest in the Lake Clark posting. Unfortunately, there
were some administrative errors occurred that indicate the competition for the
job might not include all the qualified candidates. You may have actually
received an auto generated email indicating you were not referred when you
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actually were and, potentially, vice versa. In order to be fair to all concerned
the current advertisement is cancelled. If you are still interested in this great job
please watch USAJobs for the reposting of the advertisement. Even if you have
already applied you must reapply if you1920d like to be considered. I regret any
inconvenience this may cause but it is the right thing to do under the
circumstances. If you have any questions please feel free to call [name omitted]
at [omitted]. Thank you for your interest with the National Park Service. You are
encouraged to visit www.usajobs.gov to view additional Federal employment
opportunities and information. PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL
MESSAGE. IT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED.
This system is not working. I don't know who these people are and they don't
know me or my park. They are difficult to reach and seem overextended. I can't
answer most of the survey questions (answered "neither agree nor disagree")
because I simply do not know these people well enough to have any opinions
about their competence.
Answering these questions is very difficult because of the variability from one HR
employee to the next. Individual expertise and attitude make all the difference
between individuals. The Denver SHRO has been fabulous, especially [names
omitted]. Also working with the Yellowstone SHRO, my experience has been less
satisfactory.
My sense in working with 3 different SHROs through the past several years, is that
the employees want to do a good job. But they are often overworked, which
leads them to take new jobs, leaving the remaining employees even more
overworked....in a constant cycle.
There are some individuals who are very good at the previous topics and others
who are not. So I was trying to think about an overall average. Also, for many
questions, I really had no way of knowing so put "neither agree nor disagree"
where I would have put "don't know" if that was a choice. For other the
questions, I chose "neither agree nor disagree" because that was the
appropriate response.
My transfer from a different agency was a long slow process with minimal
information to myself or departing agency in regards to start dates. I was places
in a wrong PD not covering my firefighter retirement as I was eligible.
Because they are located in a different location and because I have not
needed much information from the HROC I cannot comment on any of the
above questions. My recent attempt to get a retirement was done quickly and
efficiently.
There is a total lack of communication between the AZ SHRO and Supervisors
who are trying to hire employee's. Draft announcements aren't being sent to
supervisors, applicant's who have absolutely no prior experience at all are
qualifying for positions at the GS 6 and higher level, the "rules" keep changing as
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to what they need/require and what they don't with no prior warning, applicants
are being rudely spoken to when questioned as to why their names were not
forwarded on to the hiring official. Every time an issue is brought to the SHRO's
attention, we are always told "it's HROC folks, there's nothing we can do about
it." The staffing specialist hardly ever answer their phone, making us leave VM,
that never get returned. We have better luck with E-mails, but not always. I have
heard other supervisor's, as well as myself us the term "lip service" of the 2 top
people at the AZ SHRO....they listen, but NOTHING is ever accomplished or
solved.
I have been provided fantastic support/effort and advice from the Anchorage
regional office in writing job descriptions that target people with the skills I need
to perform highly specialized positions. I have been expertly advised by Human
Resource Specialists in the regional office when dealing with an employee who
was having performance problems. The AK Regional Human Resource staff was
wonderful to work with when I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with
an employee whose expectations of a particular grade increase did not match
her paperwork. Their innovation and willingness to explore a range of solutions for
me (the supervisor) and the employee helped diffuse the situation and
potentially prevented it from mushrooming into a legal action. It also allowed the
agency to hold onto a productive employee.
it is not possible to respond to the preceding questions related to the overall
efficacy of the HR staff and organization. in dealing with staff at multiple SHROs
and HROC I have encountered employees at various points on the scale for
each of these statements. Response to each statement would depend on who I
relate the question to. Should it be the best or the worst or the one in the
middle?
Without having worked either within an HR office or had numerous and intimate
contact with HR representatives I feel it a disservice to try to answer some of the
questions posed ... how do I know if they require "minimal supervision" or "meet
deadlines" or "foster team spirit"???
I have a behavior-based difficulty with an employee. SHRO directs us to
document the situation. Every 6 months for 18 months we've had the issue
handed over to a new HR specialist. Each time the HR specialist has issue with
their predecessor's methods, and we're asked to begin documenting the
situation anew. The problem remains unresolved to the detriment of the staff,
mission, and Service.
How the heck are we supposed to answer these questions when we have no
personal experience with the shro or hroc? Have heard of it but have no
personal comunication with it! Our park HR folks here were awesome and still
are for what they can do. I have no idea about the people far removed from
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the park. Is it absolutely necessary to change the way we do business constantly
and moving more towards big government?
Northwest SHRO has been extremely helpful to me as a new supervisor and as an
individual regularly dealing with PIV/DOI Access requests.
The 5 week deadline for submitting paperwork to be processed, including for
emergency hires is completely unacceptable. This move was to make HR
function more efficient and it has failed. There is no follow up or advising when
employment dates are changes, there is no concern about helping parks to
meet our mission. So far, the consolidation has been a waste of effort. Bring the
HR function back to the parks.
I have mixed experiences. I find that most of the people in the SHRO (most) are
willing to help, available to answer questions, etc. I have gotten mixed
information from some of them and really have only 1 particular person that I
can rely on for sound information and guidance. I am serviced by the NE SHRO.
I have been hassled when going through the process of a student appointment
(before pathways) where I felt discriminatory practices were being used and I
had the ARD for Admin attempting to racially screen my applicant by asking me
prohibited personnel questions which I did not answer. This SHOULD NOT BE
HAPPENING! I had a cert from the HROC that had people on it that did not
meet the basic screen out factors and some were even placed on the cert
when it was obvious that the application was fraudulent (made up name,
diploma mill generated transcript, false SSN etc, when I asked how this
happened, the answer I got was "well, sometimes applicants are so worried
about identity theft that they put down different information on the application"
I have a hard time trusting the process when I can't get a cert that has only
qualified people on it. I can't trust the SHRO when I get different answers from
different people (again, I only have 1 person that I trust to get information from)
and I can't trust that the hiring process is not biased against certain applicants so
that the agency can fill what amounts to a quota system.
I found your questioning vague because you are asking us to rate all HR
employees. I believe HR employees encompass the full spectrum of
performance and dedication from very poor to very good and outstanding.
One's opinion will vary depending on the degree of interaction with HR
employees and the amount of employees one has worked with.
While I have had many positive experiences with both SHRO offices I deal with, I
am concerned about the misinterpretation of information that is relayed to field
staff such as myself on a routine basis. It has become common-place to contact
one individual for information and if the answer is not what I want, I can contact
someone else at the other location and get the opposite response. I have also
witnessed an HR Specialist who had his own agenda and purposely stifled
various processes for supervisors that he had targeted creating a stressful,
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wasteful and unproductive environment. Many HR processes are slow and
tedious and hiring officials do not get adequate guidance to do their parts in
order to expedite processes.
My response are most specific to my experience (which has been good) with
HROC. Experience with our agency HRO is also good regarding content and
information provided but leave something to be desired regarding timeliness of
response.
No, just that I have had both, and have seen improvement over the last year.
Some HR employees are great, others have been not so great. That's why many
questions above are answered with Neither Agree Nor Disagree.
Frankly, it is taking far longer than 5 years ago, for example, to hire. Months
longer with the extra layers of centralized operations. Even adding one word to a
PD can take months. Seasonal hiring/recruitment I now expect to take 6 months
or longer.
I have not known what my pay grade will be from day to day for the last 14
months due to our SHRO attempting to make corrections on promotions. HROC,
WASO & finally the Solicitor's Office all were involved. At present, I am in an
Acting Supervisor position for the AK Region not getting paid what I'm supposed
to because the SHRO has not been able to do any discernible work toward
eventuating a positive result. The Solicitor created a settlement to push the
situation forward. I contact the SHRO at least once a month for updates & am
told that it is a priority that will be addressed within the work week. I have seen
no progress in my case for 14 months. The meantime has proven the SHRO to
lack most any semblance of understanding of how that might negatively effect
our operation, my performance or the morale of the four persons involved. Were
they friendly or helpful in other situations one might recognize context as a
cause, but the fact is they are curt, snippy, exasperated by questions &
irretrievably adverse to helping. I am at a loss how a human relations office
could be so sharply lacking in any kind of human touch. All of that said, I will
absolutely give credit to our park's HR specialist, who is always helpful, engaged
& positive.
I often find HR employees to be rule bound; rather than results oriented.
Frankly, I only work with a few HR people to hire seasonals. I have now idea how
they rate on most of the items you have asked about, which is why I answered
most items with the "neither agree nor disagree" choice. I think that HR, like every
other group in NPS these days, is under a lot of pressure and have too little
resources (like people) to enable them to do their jobs in a something less than a
very stressful environment. Whether the new organization of SHROs and HROC
helps ease some of this or not, I don't know. However, having the SHROs set up
with names for leads and those working in that group is very helpful. Plus our
SHRO (and maybe all the SHROs) has put together a hiring guide for seasonals,
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and this year, added hiring work flows, the time it takes for each step (provided
all the correct paperwork is in), consultations that each hiring manager should
have with HR prior to the hiring process in order to make sure everyone is on the
same page, and a checklist of what needs to be done as the hiring process
moves along. They have had conference calls for anyone who wants to go over
these things. So I applaud their efforts toward clarifying and breaking down the
hiring process into understandable steps.
All of the above answers are gross generalizations, as experiences vary greatly
with individual HR employees. Generally, especially with our current SHRO staff,
all experiences have been very positive in all respects.
I think the Alaska Regional HR folks are terrific with excellent customer service
skills, creative problem solving, empathetic and extremely helpful especially
when it comes to hiring and personnel issues. I think [name omitted] has been
very responsive to my questions regarding my retirement estimate at the HROC
level. I think it has been a painful transition to these systems especially to the
seasonal hiring process at the national level. I think its getting better. The notes
that are sent out to applicants such as they have not been forwarded to the
selecting official even though they have a very high score are not helpful.
In FY 2012, I was attempting to make contact with applicants with veteran's
preference. I contacted all the vets except one. All the other vets were no
longer interested and responded either verbally or in writing depending upon
their status. Except one veteran. I documented my initial call and left a voice
message. I called the next day, left a voice message requesting a response 7
days later. I followed this up with an email and provided the same deadline for a
response – 7 days later. On the 8th day, I called one last time and left a message
informing vet the deadline had passed. Documented all these contacts and was
keeping my HR POC abreast of what was happening. After no response (the day
after the deadline passed), I asked HR to send the certified letter to the
applicant. The HR rep told me to continue to try to contact the applicant. I did
that for another 7 WEEKS before HR finally sent the certifed letter which the
applicant failed to respond. I asked why we had to wait so long when OPM regs
are pretty clear on the issue and was told "I like to give people every reasonable
opportunity to respond". Because of this, I had to go 7-8 weeks without an
employee! Unbelieveable. FYI – I contacted OPM's vet office to find out if we
had to wait this long. Their response was that a nonresponsive vet is like any other
applicant who fails to respond. Document your attempts to contact, provide a
reasonable amount of time to respond, then show them as failed to respond.
Sometimes I get two different answers from two different people. Sometimes
they do not share important information in a timely fashion. Overall, they are
good employees who try to help anyway they can. And I appreciate that. The
conversion to the Pathways program is driving all of us NUTS!
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Not sure if the questions about HR employees are to be answered with my HR
operation in mind, or if they are meant to let me know what you think are the
qualities of an effective HR professional and ask whether I agree. I responded to
the former. Not sure who to go to for what anymore other than I know the HROC
provides a centralized function with respect to certain things, such as retirement
calculations. Our HR office has a website, but I find it not to be very intuitive.
Recent experience with local HR staff in responding to my questions related to
the needed content of various documents to effect advertising and filling a
position was professional, knowledgeable and helpful.
[Name omitted] at the NER SHRO is great to work with. She always makes time to
answer questions, explain procedures, and research related information for me.
The above questions are so broad and unspecific that they border on being
impossible to answer. There are excellent HR professionals whom I work with at
the SHRO, NCR and others who are less so... and my answers vary depending
upon who I deal with and on what issues. My major difficulties, as a hiring official,
are with the current system of categorical rating for lower level GS jobs. These
difficulties reflect a BROKEN SYSTEM, in part owning to Presidential Orders and the
administrative methods developed inside and outside of NPS to implement these
directives. Essentially, the process to apply is too easy, generates a huge
number of responses, and since a very fast turn-around time is EXPECTED, has
little quality control. Hence, people who obviously lie on their self-appraisal
questions are NOT caught and weeded out, while people who are too modest in
the self-evaluations do not receive additional consideration based on the quality
of their resumes. We are supposed to be hiring mainly on the basis of merit, and I
cannot believe that these principles are being followed in the evaluation of
candidates for my positions. In most other areas, I am quite pleased with the
general caliber of HR work. I am always appreciative of the labors of the HR
professionals and feel I can always count of receiving accurate information and
guidance in issues of pay, EEO, training, benefits, leave, timekeeping,
security/background check, union relations, etc.
While some individuals may be willing to look at an issue from different
perspectives and seek legal methods for resolving issues, all too often the culture
is one mired in "we do it this way or not at all" mentality. This is neither creative or
helpful as more complex demands are placed on personnel to accomplish
mission goals. Again, this is NOT true for each individual. However, I have
experienced cases were one persons initiative was squashed by superiors who
were intransigent to the need for innovative work.
It's hard to generalize HR employee behavior and professionalism as a group. As
a whole, HR just seems to process personnel, etc and it does so very slowly. There
is no communication, not guidance, the rules change everytime and managers
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are left guessing – what the rules are, what is needed, when we should expect
responses or actions. Not much is initiated by HR employees.
In many instances, I have no reference point to use for responses to the survey.
In the one instance of disagreement, I am basing that response on HROC's
institution of mandatory lead times for processing actions. This policy may have
been softened, but when in place, this policy created substantial hardship for
local managers, supervisors and employees as HROC was extremely inflexible
and unresponsive to real operational needs.
During my on-boarding the Denver Service Center person assigned to me was
courteous, but was unable to find a creative solution to attaining my AL and Sick
Time hours from my previous Federal employer. I found the solution and
forwarded the documents, but the time was never entered correctly. In
addition, I was entered into the HR System as a Female and I am a Male. This
resulted in my medical records, medical cards, and doctor assignments all
carrying the tag of Female. I had to work to unravel this which cost me
additional time and delay at Kaiser including the issuing of a new card. It took
two weeks for the Denver Service Center to correct my gender in the system.
HROC deadlines are totally unrealistic for the real world. When combined with
SHRO lead times, a 5 pay period lead time truly hampers the services ability to
have actions processed.
Attention to detail, particularly in processing seasonal certificates, seems to be
lacking. Good service through SHRO, terrible through HROC...sorry, but there
needs to be improvement in speed, accuracy and customer service.
There was a turnover in personnel servicing my organization, and because of a
seeming lack of succession planning, it has taken my servicing official a lengthy
period of time to become proficient with the needs of my organization. This not
due to lack of trying – as my servicing official is courteous, kind and seems to
work hard, it was simply a very large amount of complex rules and knowledge
that had to be mastered over time.
With the conversion to the SHRO/HROC system it seems to take longer to
accomplish tasks that used to be routine. It has been my experience that SHRO's
have isolated themselves from the rest of the workforce and have developed a
disconnect with the people that they need to consult. It may be a result of a
lack of people, but there needs to be a "customer service" desk that can
actually handle routine questions from the field offices – setting up a limited time
when a field office can call HR wastes the time of the field person if their
schedule does not coincide with the HR office! Initially, SHRO offices I have dealt
with seemed to assume a "holier-than-thou" attitude although it seems to be
getting better. Field personnel are not experts and the SHRO office is their only
chance to seek authoritative direction so SHRO employees need to be in touch
with field operations so that they can suggest appropriate alternatives and
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creative solutions (this implies that they are willing to listen to the field supervisor
and determine what really needs to be done.)
For most of the above answers, I based my responses on interactions/personal
knowledge of SHRO &/or HROC employees and not at the local level; at the
local level, 'HR' is only one of the many hats worn by staff and they are not
experts in the HR arena.
The head of the SHRO reviewed an employee's qualifications for a temporary
promotion and stated that he did not qualify for the series, although a SHRO staff
person had qualified him. I had to review the employee's transcripts and point
out the relevant courses, and he had more than enough credits to qualify for the
series. I received a certificate with a veteran at the top. Upon review of his
application I found that he did not meet the positive education requirement. I
had to request that his name be removed from the certificate since he did not
meet basic qualifications. I think the SHRO staff put forth a good effort and tries
to issue announcements and certificates in a timely manner. However, the new
organization has resulted in a much larger workload without an increase in staff.
I have had little contact with HR employees in several years. The couple of
requests for information that I have sent them have been ignored.
most experiences are positive
The SHRO philosophy is highly variable depending on which SHRO you are
dealing with – ethics and customer service vary greatly depending on the
personal leadership of the SHRO supervisor/lead. SHRO supervisors recently
transferred to NPS from other agencies seem very ineffective or not committed
to NPS employees. There appears to be a lack of accountability for consistency
in decisions and customer service to regional supervisors of the SHRO system.
Frequently Superintendents have to get involved to get a decision or reverse a
decision that is wrong, conflicts with an earlier decision, or is contrary to policy.I
have known many great SHRO employees, but there is minimal consistency. I
appreciate their work, and the tremendous strains that the changes over the last
few years have produced, but they are essential to all we do... the field just
wants consistency in customer service.
We have an outsatnding HR office. All the things you mention in your above
questions they do. They are a highly regarded function on the base here.
The West SHRO policy is to only communicate through one POC per park unit on
all HR matters. This is an extremely inefficient and ineffective means of
communication. plus it make me feel like a fifth grader where everything has to
go through the "teacher".
I see need for improvement in the following Workforce Management areas: /
*Employee Relations expertise / *Flexibility to adapt to park circumstances (i.e.,
is 5 weeks always needed to process a SF-52?) / *Advocating and supporting
more assertive disciplinary decisions.
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Really hard to respond to these type questions as I rarely have personal
interaction with HR personnel. Other park staff contact them for answers.
I feel that I have to keep almost daily tabs on any HR work I need to have done,
to ensure that it actually happens. This takes a big chunk of time and energy
that I should not have to do...after all, I am not the HR worker. I don't understand
why I have to do so much of the work. It seems that the system in place is
incredibly inefficient and places unnecessary demands on the time of
supervisors. The supervisor should simply place requests and provide specialized
knowledge to the HR dept, and the HR dept should fill out and deal with all the
forms...forms which have meaning ONLY to HR people, who have the
appropriate knowledge to fill them out properly and know where they need to
go.
There is a large competency gap evident in our HR staffers. They are good at
filling out forms, holding the parks to the bureaucratic letter of regulation, but
have very little ability (or desire) to analyze alternatives and come up with
creative solutions to help parks accomplish their work and mission. It is my
impression that most of the central office (HROC/SROC) employees, have no
experience working in a park, and thus no experience with the needs of park
work, or the technical expertise needed by the numerous occupational positions
that work in park. It is also my impression that more SHRO employees have field
experience in NPS, that the employees of the HROC or SROC.)
Sometimes assume that everyone understands their technical terms and
abbreviations, that we know where to find all the forms that they keep creating,
and we know which form is to be used for every situation.
I don't think there is consistency with decisions/practices across the board. There
are actions that are implemented differently from one region to another and
SHRO to SHRO. Efficiency is not a priority and holding SHRO employees
accountable for their workloads is not practiced.
There are not one size fits all answers for these questions. Certain SHROs within
the agency are very progressive, helpful, and always striving to improve
customer service. Other SHROs are the opposite.
It seems like HR employees are not willing to look for solutions, only to tell us what
we can't do.
Seems to me the phrase "HR employees" is to broad to be useful relative to these
questions. Most questions could have been rated as anywhere in my mind from
strongly agree to disagree depending on the individual employees that came to
mind. Also, often I found myself responding to "the system" rather than the
employees per se.
I am a new Chief of Interp at [omitted] and [names omitted] on numerous
occasions have gone over and beyond the call of duty to help me with HR issues
from fingerprinting, bring new employees on board, to NACI, to assisting with
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language for new PD's, etc. There professionalism is superior and their willingness
to find effective solutions in a timely manner has allowed our operations to move
forward smoothly. They are personable and friendly. I am not afraid to ask for
their help because they never make me feel like I am bothering them.
HR functions in the National Park Service are drastically understaffed. For the
past 5-10 years this has had a dramatic adverse impact particularly on recruiting
and hiring top quality candidates. The process takes way too long and involves
far too many steps. With not enough staff for the workload, often recruitment
packages now sit much longer first in the park's Administrative Officer (SHRO
contact) then at the SHRO then to the HROC. The next phase, when the Job
Announcement finally comes and then closes, results now in delays in getting
certificates of eligibles. After certificates are used and selections made, there is
another lengthly review process at HR followed then by background checks.
These take longer as well. Because of this unnecssary backlog, even park's that
submit their packages many months ahead of time, are forced do without
personnel for long critical periods. This hampers parks from meeting their goals
and even their ability to open sites and offer consistent quality service to the
public. I thought that the centralization of HR functions which lead to the SHROs
and the HROC was supposed to help streamline operations but up until now, it
has made things much more difficult.
These questions are impossible to answer since they don't differentiate among HR
employees. You spent all the time up front investigating whether the survey
taker knows what a SHRO and what the HROC are – but then don't give us the
opportunity to differentiate in our answers. My experience with HR professionals
at my SHRO, at the HROC and at WASO have been very different.