{"id":15425,"date":"2015-01-15T15:29:38","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T15:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/uncategorized\/2015\/01\/15\/tackling-a-big-hairy-problem-morale\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T04:44:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T04:44:52","slug":"tackling-a-big-hairy-problem-morale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/opinions\/2015\/01\/15\/tackling-a-big-hairy-problem-morale\/","title":{"rendered":"Tackling a &#8216;big hairy&#8217; problem: Morale"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Howard Risher is a consultant and writer on federal pay and performance issues. He was the managing consultant for the studies leading to the 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act and is the author of &#8216;Planning Wage and Salary Programs.&#8217; <\/i><br\/><br\/>Last week Ronald Sanders authored a post on the Federal Times management blog called,&#8221;6 &#8216;big, hairy&#8217; federal human capital challenges in 2015.&#8221; He argued that &#8220;if left to fester unresolved until 2016 and beyond, they threaten no less than our nation&#8217;s security.&#8221; He&#8217;s correct. When morale declines, performance declines. It&#8217;s already made the nation&#8217;s headlines. When the acting director of the Secret Service testified in the fall, he warned Congress that the low morale could cause &#8220;potentially dire consequences.&#8221;<br\/><br\/><b>Related: <\/b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.federaltimes.com\/story\/government\/management\/blog\/2015\/01\/08\/big-hairy-human-capital-challenges\/21442097\/\" title=\"http:\/\/www.federaltimes.com\/story\/government\/management\/blog\/2015\/01\/08\/big-hairy-human-capital-challenges\/21442097\/\">6 &#8216;big hairy&#8217; federal human capital challenges in 2015<\/a><br\/><br\/>Anyone who follows sports knows what low morale does to performance. When a football team is being beaten badly in the fourth quarter that team&#8217;s effort and performance declines. Last summer my Phillies rarely displayed the enthusiasm they had when they were competing for the pennant. Morale was low. <br\/><br\/>Low morale is associated with low productivity, reduced effort, lack of attention, poor customer service, lack of cooperation, increased absenteeism, lateness and turnover. If low morale is ignored, it sends the message that management is disinterested and that adds to the deterioration. <br\/><br\/><b>Talk About This: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/groups\/Morale-Is-performance-management-problem-8175429.S.5961516773193895938\" title=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/groups\/Morale-Is-performance-management-problem-8175429.S.5961516773193895938\">Join the discussion on LinkedIn<\/a><br\/><br\/><b>Performance Management is a Core Problem<\/b><br\/><br\/>Of course the sequestration and pay freeze contributed to low morale. However, the responses to a number of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) questions were repeatedly low years before the current recession.<br\/><br\/>Today 36 percent of respondents agree &#8216;promotions in my work unit are based on merit.&#8217; In 2006 only 34 percent agreed with that statement. In the 2014 survey 32 percent agreed &#8216;differences in performance are recognized&#8217;; 30 percent agreed in 2006. Even fewer employees agree that &#8216;steps are taken to deal with a poor performer.&#8217; Now 28 percent agree; in 2006 29 percent agreed. <br\/><br\/>Actually the pattern of responses highlights a core problem and the eventual solution. That&#8217;s performance management. Over a dozen additional FEVS questions are linked directly or indirectly to the way employee performance is managed.<br\/><br\/>The survey responses make it very clear that performance is managed poorly across the federal government. Addressing the problem will trigger improved morale.<br\/><br\/><b>Related: <\/b><a href=\"http:\/\/archive.federaltimes.com\/article\/20141106\/DEPARTMENTS\/311060013\/Telework-bright-spot-an-unhappy-federal-workforce\" title=\"http:\/\/archive.federaltimes.com\/article\/20141106\/DEPARTMENTS\/311060013\/Telework-bright-spot-an-unhappy-federal-workforce\">Telework a bright spot in an unhappy federal workforce<\/a><br\/><br\/>Everything research tells us what employees want to experience at work and what contributes to and reinforces their sense of engagement is associated with the way their performance is managed.<br\/><br\/>Performance management is important because it impacts the way employees perform. When it&#8217;s done well, performance is significantly higher. That contributes to job satisfaction. Employees want to contribute and take pride in feeling important to their organization&#8217;s success. The pride is a key to morale.<br\/><br\/><b>Managers, Employee Engagement and Performance<\/b><br\/><br\/>Employee engagement \u2014 an employee&#8217;s commitment to their employer&#8217;s success \u2014 has been studied in every environment by now. It&#8217;s a construct and frankly each writer it seems has a somewhat different definition. It&#8217;s like love or beauty; it means something different to everyone, but there is solid agreement it&#8217;s important and contributes to better (or worse) performance.<br\/><br\/>It&#8217;s more than job satisfaction. Even the worst performers can be satisfied with elements of their job like pay and benefits and decide to stay. Focusing on job satisfaction can be misleading.<br\/><br\/>Gallup has done the most research, going back years. Their research shows the way a supervisor manages performance day-to-day is the key. <br\/><br\/>Other researchers have found middle managers and supervisors have more impact on performance than any other factor. Across an organization, where there are high performance teams, it&#8217;s explained by the effectiveness of the manager. When effective managers move to new jobs, they again have a positive impact on the performance of their people.<br\/><br\/><b>Performance Management is a Management Problem<\/b><br\/><br\/>For years PM was treated as an HR problem, but it&#8217;s not. HR typically has no involvement in the day-to-day management of performance. The caveat for government is that HR should plan to take the lead initially to build support for change. <br\/><br\/>HR keeps the records, distributes the forms, and provides the training, but none of that has any real impact on the way managers manage.<br\/><br\/>This is also not a problem that can be addressed in collective bargaining. Unions have an important role to insure managers are fair and to support employees who feel they were not treated fairly. But the effort led by the Federal Labor-Management Relations Council to develop better PM practices lost momentum in 2012 after then-president of the American Federation of Government Employees John Gage dismissed it as &#8220;human resource make-work.&#8221; <br\/><br\/>An important conclusion that came out of that effort is that this is <i>not <\/i>&#8220;a systems problem. Our problems are human ones and they are entrenched in the cultures of our agencies.&#8221;<br\/><br\/>When leaders make addressing the problem a priority, it sends an important message. Since needed changes will require two or more years, leaders need to stay involved and to hold their direct reports accountable for making it happen. Simply stated, managing people effectively has to be a priority.<br\/><br\/>But as a &#8216;human problem&#8217; success happens at the work unit level and depends on the relationships a manager has with his or her people. More effective PM will necessitate modifying those relationships, developing new skills and changing behavior. <br\/><br\/>It&#8217;s important to appreciate that all of this can be accomplished at minimal expense. It&#8217;s an investment since it will contribute to improved results. <br\/><br\/><b>The Key to Success<\/b><br\/><br\/>There are a number of books and many articles on PM. Some of the most useful material was published by GAO. The virtually universal model for executives, managers and the majority of professionals is based on the achievement of individual performance goals. <br\/><br\/>My experience convinced me that involving managers and employees in the planning is a key to success. GAO agrees. Their recommendation is to: <br\/><br\/>Involve employees and stakeholders to gain ownership of performance management systems. Early and direct involvement helps increase employees&#8217; and stakeholders&#8217; understanding and ownership of the system and belief in its fairness.<br\/><br\/> With guidance, their experience makes them well qualified to plan successful PM systems.<br\/><br\/>John Gage was wrong if he was suggesting that PM \u2014 when managed effectively \u2014 is &#8216;make-work&#8217;. Employees want to know what&#8217;s expected, what they need to accomplish to be successful, and what they can expect. They want constructive, job-specific feedback so they can grow and improve. They also want to know how their work efforts contribute to achieving agency goals and to have their value recognized. The PM system is best understood as a tool for managers to facilitate performance discussions.<br\/><br\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Low morale threatens agency effectiveness. Here&#8217;s what to do about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":46049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":26,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[576],"class_list":["post-15425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management","category-opinions"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"BOIGIKVOCZCJZNNVMA2HNVA4XI","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinions\/2015\/01\/15\/tackling-a-big-hairy-problem-morale\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Tackling a &#039;big hairy&#039; problem: Morale - Federal Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Low morale threatens agency effectiveness. 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